


All Four Walls Make A Home

by pulseandhaze



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Babysitter Steve Harrington, But it'll be worth it I promise, Closeted Character, Dungeons & Dragons, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Everyone is in this, Hurt/Comfort, It's my version of Season 3, M/M, Mystery, Period-Typical Homophobia, Please Join My Protect Will Byers Club, Post-Season 2, Redemption, Slow Burn, The canon ships for the kids apply, the slowest of burns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-02-12 07:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 44,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12954192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pulseandhaze/pseuds/pulseandhaze
Summary: Things are supposed to be normal. El closed the gate, and now the shadows Steve thinks he sees in the middle of the night are supposed to be figments of his imagination. But knowing what he knows, can he ever accept that? When it turns out that maybe an evil from another dimension and a government conspiracy aren't so easily silenced, Steve finds himself cornered in a unexpected way: having to balance his new kind-of friendship with Billy Hargrove, and his top secret detective/security guard night job. Thanks, Reagan.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will act as if it is Season 3, with a plot that does not revolve around relationships, however, a big focus will be Billy's redemption arc and his relationships with the characters (mainly Steve). What I wanted when outlining this, was to make sure that Billy coming into his own as a person was not the product of only Steve, but rather several people, because having a support system avoids problematic relationship dynamics like dependency and co-dependency. Please enjoy chapter one and thank you forever to my wife for editing!

“So: you wanna press charges, kid?” Hopper asks, sitting on the desk with a cigarette between his lips. It’s the night after El successfully closed the gate, and Hopper’s form of celebration is cleaning up the rest of the messes that followed.

Steve leans his head back, squinting at the proximity of the smoke. His face is swollen, but at least now he has proper bandages on his cuts that aren’t slathered in adhesive and covered in rainbows. “For what?”

“What d’ya mean, ‘for what’? The concussion? Broken nose?”

Steve shakes his head. Hopper nods after a beat, accepting that. “What else happened? Why’d you leave the house with the kids?”

“That—” God, he’s too tired to be angry. “I didn’t really have a choice. I don’t know how they got me in the car, but I woke up to one of them driving, and—”

“Who was driving?”

“Don’t know, chief.” He taps his head really lightly, but there’s the slightest hint of smugness behind it. He’s not ratting out these kids, not even to Hopper. “Concussion.”

“I’m not asking about which _kid_ was—” Hopper stops, sighs quietly. “Was _Billy Hargrove_ in the car? Was he driving?”

“No. Look. I don’t know what the kids told you, but this is what happened:” He has to think for a second. His mind is fuzzy and he has a tendency to sound really confident about things before falling short. “Chaos. That’s what. The second the situation got out of hand, I went in full force. It was like the adrenaline was in control, you know? And it lasted that way the entire night. I told them I was gonna keep them safe. I did, didn’t I?”

“That’s not the point. I get it. You don’t wanna be here. Neither do I… I just need to know: is this guy going to come after them with a mean streak a mile wide, or…?” He takes a second to collect his thoughts. “I wanna know if the kids are in danger or not, Steve. Are they?”

Steve softens, but he’s completely serious. “No.” It might’ve sucked at the time, but he’s proud of how they handled the situation. “Not anymore.”

\--

It’s Sunday night, a month later. The kids have upgraded their D&D game in a few significant ways. For one, Lucas has made a sound argument: he’s the DM now, so if Mike has any problems with Max joining the campaign, he can sit this one out. Secondly, El is allowed to play with them, as long as she doesn’t leave the house until Hopper is there to pick her up.

The most pivotal change (and what made Lucas’ argument so compelling) is that the Wheeler’s basement has flooded, so they had to find a new challenging grounds for what ‘could be’ upwards of several months.

And that’s the shorthand version of why Steve is chauffeuring Max home after he just dropped off Mike, Will, and Dustin.

Steve’s heard just enough about their campaign that he can get the appeal to a game like that. He can’t say, however, that he has any idea what’s going on or what a ‘fort drain’ is, or why Mike was so mad about getting one right before entering a dungeon. It’s something bad though, and Steve knows he wouldn’t want something bad happening to _him_ before having to go in a dungeon.

Max asks him to turn up the music when the boys have been dropped off. He’s happy to help. They sing to the words together on the way down the road.

The front door to the Hargrove household opens before Steve is even parked, and Max leans forward with a puzzled expression when her mother comes outside. Steve turns down the stereo. Susan tosses her scarf further around her neck in the cold, then waves at Steve’s car. When he first realizes she’s coming to the driver’s side, he rolls down his window, but Susan glances at Max in a way that says this is meant to be an exclusive conversation.

He turns off his car, opens the door and hesitantly gets out. He’s torn between wanting to be polite and not wanting to have to have a full conversation. God forbid an adult _talks_ to him.

“Hi,” she says. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

Steve gives Max a look, too, but it’s a cry for help more than anything. She shrugs before going inside. Her shrug says there’s nothing she can give him but a ‘good luck.’ “…No. I’m sorry. Steve Harrington.” He offers a hand to shake, and it’s gentle and brief.

“You’ve been dropping my daughter off here and there? She’s mentioned you a few times. I just wanted to say thank you.”

“Yeah, it’s not a problem.” Steve puts his hands in his jacket pockets. “She’s a good kid.” Suddenly he’s self-conscious, words from Billy echoing in the back of his head: that it’s creepy. “I’ve been taxi-ing around a bunch of the kids from the middle school—ones that she hangs out with. It just seemed easier since they all live in one place.”

Susan actually smiles at him, nothing like a ruse. Nothing off about it. “Is there any way I could… pay you to continue doing that? It wouldn’t be every day, and nothing permanent.”

“Oh? Yeah, that’s… fine. I mean. You don’t have to pay me. It’s no big deal, really.”

“Are you sure? I don’t mind at all. You’d be doing me a big favor. Her brother usually drives her to school, and—”

“Yeah… We’ve met,” Steve says, scoffing a bit in amusement.

Susan looks away for a moment, looking like she wants to add her two cents on the subject, but she just continues with her train of thought. “He won’t be available to drive her home after school, and I’m afraid I don’t have another option. I don’t want her to have to go home on her own over such a long distance.”

“That’s fine with me. What days are we talking?”

And there’s the smile again. “Tuesday and Thursday. But… over the next six weeks. Which is why I wanted to pay you for it. At least for gas money.”

Steve declines her again. He’s forced to play a bit of verbal hockey with her until she finally takes no for an answer, but eventually he’s back in his car and on his way. He realizes only when he’s halfway home that he should’ve asked what this is all for.

—

It’s Thursday, and day two of Steve’s designated driving job. He watches that dark blue Camaro pull out of the high school parking lot with a purpose, same as Tuesday. It takes its unnecessarily loud music with it. If he’s honest, Steve was never bothered by the music itself, just the aggravating message Hargrove was trying to make with it every goddamn day.

These past few weeks have been quieter. Their confrontations minimal. The stereo’s rock and roll was just background music now.

It’s pretty funny a thirteen-year-old with a bat put the fear of God in him. Not that Steve can blame him. It _does_ have nails in it.

“She’s not coming with us, is she?” Dustin asks. Steve hadn’t even noticed the kids approach.

“Where?” Max uncertainly opens the car door to the back seat when Dustin gets in the front, putting her backpack and skateboard on the floor. “You guys are going somewhere?”

Steve automatically answers Dustin’s question as he starts up the car. “I’m just taking her home.”

“He drove me on Tuesday, too,” Max says. “My mom asked him to. Where are you guys _going_?”

Dustin turns the mirror up front so he can give her a look without turning around. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Hey!” Steve has to take a second to adjust the mirror again. “Hands off.”

Even though there’s edge to his voice, there’s little bite to it. There’s a reason he keeps turning down cold hard cash to drive these kids around, and it’s not because he’s shy.

“I was just trying to be dramatic… We’re going to the county mall.” Dustin looks back at her over the seat this time, chin resting on the shoulder of it. “The mall in Roane has Steve’s favorite restaurant. Isn’t that right, Steve?”

“That, and I just like going to the city because no one knows who I am.”

“It’s not a city.”

Steve glances at him as he pulls up to the stop light. “What?”

“Cities are essentially just a bunch of towns overlapping each other.” He’s still angled to Max, even though he’s glancing at Steve, and he gives a little shrug. “Roane doesn’t classify as a city, it’s just one large town.”

“I’m… pretty sure you’re wrong about that, but okay.”

“Cities have skyscrapers,” Max adds.

Dustin glances her way. “You’re thinking of a metropolis. Cities are just based on population, not how tall their buildings are.”

With a scoff, Max crosses her arms. “Okay… _Any_ way— you’re going to some mall to get food? How far away is it?”

“Like thirty minutes,” Steve tells her. “Yes, it still smells like cow shit; and no, it’s nothing like the malls in California. At least, I don’t think.” The Roane mall isn’t even half the size of the one in Indianapolis, so he’s sure it’s nothing like wherever she comes from. All Steve can imagine is crazy nightlife, and rich people with fur coats and little dogs. Also prostitutes. But like a sane person, he’s not going to voice it.

“Have fun, I guess. I’d say that sounds boring, but compared to all the options you don’t have…”

Dustin laughs heartily at that. “Sorry not everything can be demodogs and the apocalypse all the time.”

“That’s okay. I don’t know if you know this about me, but I’m a big fan of not dying.”

“Is that why you’re so good at video games?”

“Oh, yeah. Now you know my secret.”

They both break, giggling. Dustin turns back to the front seat, grabs the seatbelt, and reaches it across his chest. With a double take, Steve gapes at him. “You weren’t wearing that??”

It’s only a few minutes more until they’re pulling up to the Hargrove residence, and Max gathers up her belongings. There’s a resigned sigh and a thud from beside Steve when Max closes the front door behind her, and Steve can’t help but feel his chest tighten for Dustin. He debates whether or not he wants to say something for a long moment as he pulls out onto the road again.

Dustin doesn’t pull his resigned gaze from the house until it’s directly behind them. It doesn’t take a genius to put together that things aren’t going exactly as planned.

But what do you even say? It’s not like _his_ love life is all sorted out either.

“It’s looking like you’re in phase two,” Steve says, searching for any shift in emotion on Dustin’s face.

“Phase two of what?”

“You know… a blossoming romance. Getting the girl.”

Dustin scoffs. “Ha! Maybe it would be if I didn’t already know Lucas won her over.”

“And how do you know that?”

There’s a long pause. Dustin fidgets with his hands, looking out the window, which he’s now resting his head on. His voice is small. “I saw them kiss at the Snow Ball. It’s okay, though. I’m not angry, or— I wouldn’t even say I’m jealous? I don’t really. Get jealous.”

“It’s okay to be jealous sometimes.”

“Yeah, but I’m _not_.” He turns his head to give Steve a firm glare. It doesn’t last long. “So what if I am? It doesn’t change anything. I wanna be happy for Lucas. I don’t want anything to have to change between us, and it’s just easier if I lie to myself.”

With a furrowed brow, Steve stares hard at the road. Would things have stayed the same between him and Nancy if he hadn’t lashed out with anger? Would things have been better if he just pretended not to be jealous?

“Trust me when I say I get it.” The road winds itself up past the fields and forest, adjacent to the meat of the town. The sun is still relatively high in the sky at two-thirty, even in winter, so sunlight through the trees dances over the dashboard as they drive by the taller trees on the side of the road. There’s a gas station right at the junction before the highway up ahead; still part of Hawkins, but in a stand-alone segment that isn’t near any homes. The ’s’ in the neon sign spinning above it flickers to the beat of the quiet radio music neither of them are listening to.

“Is that why you haven’t brought up last Friday?” Steve asks after a long silence that they both want to shake. “You didn’t wanna talk about the dance because you saw Lucas and Max kiss?”

“Well, you don’t have to say it out loud, Steve."

He’s not really sure if he’s supposed to give advice here. But he’s also not the best at comforting, especially when he knows how Dustin is going to respond. Not that he minds being the butt of a joke to make the kid feel better, but maybe what he really needs is time…?

No. Steve knows better than anyone that’s bullshit. He’ll think of something.

As they pass the gas station, Steve eases his foot off the gas without even realizing it. There’s Hargrove’s Camaro again, AC/DC trembling the world around him, turn signal on, and waiting for Steve to pass so he can pull onto the street. He makes overly charged eye contact with Steve, but Dustin pulls him out of it.

“Never look at the basilisk. Just ignore him.”

Steve chuckles with unease. He makes the turn onto the highway, car revving with the speed increase. “Don’t worry. I’m a master at ignoring my problems.”

“Sure. And _I’m_ a master chef.”

“You watch yourself! I’m taking you to the _magic store_ ? I’m buying you _dinner_?”

There’s a louder, much more commanding engine rev from behind, and Steve glances in his rear view mirror. It feels like Billy is staring him down, but the Camaro only sits on his tail lights until the singular car going in the opposite direction zooms by. Billy speeds up, swinging into the other lane to pass Steve’s car. They make eye contact again, and for a second, everything feels like it’s in slow motion.

“Holy _shit_ ,” Dustin says. “He’s challenging you. He’s challenging you!”

“Yeah. I know!” The Camaro pulls ahead, but Steve speeds up, not letting him back in. His car pushes harder and harder, but Billy doesn’t let up either. A glance at the speedometer reads eighty-one… eighty-three…

On the fourth time Billy tries to pass him, he looks disheveled, and just the slightest bit angry. Something about it makes Steve feel like he has the upper hand for _once_.

“Oh my _gooood_ ,” Dustin cheers, leaning a little forward to grin smugly at Billy. There’s a few solid seconds where Steve and Billy just stare at each other as their cars work their way up to triple-digit speeds.

This version of Steve has been in such a deep sleep since the breakup. This Steve has been on the back burner as he made himself busy trying to right past wrongs, and reflect, and figure out which version of him Nancy would actually want as a friend. This Steve, right now, feels like he needed nothing more in this world than to race down the freeway, snippets of _Highway To Hell_ reverberating through the air, piercing through the shred of his tires and quake of his engine every time Billy’s car tries to get in the lead.

“Steve.”

This Steve doesn’t need to be hung up on the future anymore. Not the future, not the past.

“Steve.”

This Steve is going to kick Billy Hargrove’s ass.

“Steve!”

He tears his vision to the front window, then slams hard on his brakes when he sees another car coming at them. The silver sheen of metal in the distance—not too close, but all the same, _way_ too close. His brakes squeal in protest, dropping him down half the speed in just a few short seconds, and he sees the Camaro pull in front of him, then shoot up the on-ramp to the main freeway towards the state capital.

Steve is breathing heavily, his hands gripping the steering wheel like he’s afraid he’ll spin out on the road. It takes him a second to move his foot back to the gas and he can feel the oncoming car’s motion deep in his bones.

“That was so fucking awesome!” Dustin goads, exhilarated, bad mood forgotten.

Steve can’t really look at Dustin, even as he looks his way. “Yeah.” It washes over him fully that not only did he put both himself, some stranger, and Billy in danger, but—Dustin. It comes into focus in that moment, that it wasn’t until he fell for Nancy that he started to care about someone other than himself for the first time.

There’s a reason the old Steve was hung up neatly on a coatrack somewhere. Not for Steve to put on when he felt like it, or when he was feeling particularly low… but to forget about.

Because maybe he was single. Maybe he was really bad at taking punches.

But at least he wasn’t Billy Hargrove.


	2. Chapter 2

The mall is pretty busy for a weekday. Kids are in line to get their picture with Santa in the heart of the mall, which Steve and Dustin have passed by a few times: on the way to the Magic Depot, and then back for dinner at Basil Works. Dustin was right: it _is_ Steve’s favorite restaurant.

They have diners and kickass milkshakes in Hawkins, but there’s nothing like Basil Works. Does Steve love a good burger? Absolutely. But sometimes he can’t help craving grilled seafood and lemon chickpea salad…

He’s not going to be apologetic for having expensive taste, especially not when he feels like money is the only thing his family has given him.

“Why don’t you get in line…? Climb on Santa’s lap and tell him you want a girlfriend,” Dustin says, shaking the shopping bag he got from the magic store in Steve’s face.

“Santa only gives the gift of material goods,” Steve says. He pouts for added measure. “If only happiness came in a bottle.”

“I get all _my_ happiness from material goods. Maybe you just need lower standards.”

“Hand buzzers bring you that much happiness?” Steve puts his hands in his jacket pockets, nodding to the bag in Dustin’s hold.

Pulling out the packaged toy, Dustin tears at the cardboard and frees the buzzer with a shit-eating grin. He fumbles and almost drops it on the floor, but recovers, bumping into one of the TVs on display right outside RadioShack. Steve puts a hand on Dustin’s back supportively. Still grinning, the kid manages to make his recovery look like it was all part of the plan. 

“I’ve got it _hand_ led,” he says smugly, slipping it on and wiggling his fingers to accompany the pun.

Steve shakes his head. “That was bad. _No_. Please take it back.”

“What, you don’t like puns? They’re all the _buzz_ these days.”

Behind Dustin, the televisions all play the same scene in sync, all but one of them muted to keep the noise pollution to a minimum. Steve watches the tagline as it reads about a car chase on Interstate 65—the very one Billy had sped up after nearly causing a head-on collision.

“Steve, this is great material here and you’re givin’ me nothing.”

He shakes his head, glances at Dustin, then grips him on the shoulder to direct his attention to the news casting. The reporter is a man in his thirties in a thick green coat over a black jacket, talking into the mic at people back at the station. It looks pretty fucking windy out there, and Dustin feels frozen to the bone just looking at him.

“There have been multiple reports already of the vehicle they’re pursuing now. The IPD have not ID’d the driver.”

“What? _What?_ ” Dustin asks, shaking his head like he’s missing something. 

“The license plate number reads MV4-L33. Call the IPD immediately if you have any information.”

Steve swats Dustin’s shoulder a few times without any force to it. “What’s Billy’s license plate number?”

“Why would I _know_ that?”

“I don’t know,” Steve says, exasperated. “You know weird shit all the time.”

“ _Yeah_ , about things that _matter_. Are you serious right now??” Dustin shoves Steve with the intent to get him away from the display, but he doesn’t even budge. “The last thing we should be thinking about right now is Max’s stupid step-brother.”

“But what if it’s—” 

The screen cuts to a helicopter view as the reporter continues talking. “Precautions have been taken to minimize damages to the freeway. The van is heading down the I-65 towards Roane.” The camera zooms in a little, displaying an off-white van with black and orange stripes horizontally down its body.

“Does _that_ look like Billy’s car to you?” Dustin demands as the screen pans over the two cops following the getaway van. “Jesus, dude. You need a chill pill.”

Steve only watches the screen for a second more, then shakes his head. He can’t help feeling so stupid, especially drawing Dustin’s attention to it, but he’s also curious what the hell Hargrove was doing leaving town. He thought maybe he was asked to drive Max because Billy had detention, or that he had some after school tutoring thing, or maybe he got a _job_. But when he asked Max on Tuesday, she didn’t have a clue.

With a sigh, Steve looks away from the screen, then finally takes Dustin’s lead to head toward the main doors outside the mall. “Yeah… I guess you’re right.”

Dustin nudges him supportively as they begin to walk. “I’m always right.” He smiles. “Gimme your hand for a second.”

Distracted, Steve doesn’t even think twice and does as he’s told, making quick contact with the buzzer in Dustin’s hand. It vibrates and makes a sound, and Steve pulls away to Dustin’s absolute glee. “Why would you _do_ that?!”

“Um, because it’s hilarious?”

As the two of them move out of earshot from the news feed, the helicopter camera shakes and the cameraman grunts like he’s been startled. He fumbles it, safety precautions gone to the wind, like the jolting was enough to dislodge the camera strap from his hand, and all too quickly, the video statics out.

—

Steve genuinely wants to know, from the bottom of his heart, when his social life became dependent on six middle-schoolers. It’s absolutely appalling to him that he dreads his time in class because he feels like the last thing he wants to do is talk to anyone his own age. Group projects are a nightmare, study hall is a nightmare (when he absolutely has to do it), P.E. is a nightmare, and don’t even get him _started_ on pep rallies.

He promises himself, after lunch, that he’s going to take some time for himself, and then try to have a decent weekend with his parents. Whatever that entails.

Despite his best efforts, he can’t help but feel a little stiffed after school, when Max makes her way to Billy’s car and doesn’t even wave in hello. He passively watches the kids go their separate ways. He stays casual and watches Nancy climb into Jonathan’s car with a few binders and notebooks in her arms.

He even sees Tommy and Carol—they’re hanging out with his ex-girlfriend, Stacy. Steve recalls the last time she’d said something to him, and it was about the Byers family brewing crystal meth in their basement. He’d given a thin-mouthed smile and laughed then.

It makes him angry now.

It’s Friday. It’s the weekend. And next Friday, a week from now, school will be out for winter break.

After the impromptu decision to go Christmas shopping, he realizes his only plans this weekend, and during the vacation for that matter, are the kids to coming over on Sunday for their Dungeons thing. Which he’s not even a part of. They’re not even _his_ plans, they’re just taking place at his _house_. Because the Wheeler’s basement is flooded.

A year ago, he was having Christmas at the Wheeler’s in an ugly sweater, drinking eggnog for the first time (it wasn’t that bad), and making fun of the Pee-Wee Herman Christmas special with Nancy’s mom. Now… he was probably just going to sit at home with his own mother while she worked on paperwork, and _maybe_ they’d exchange gifts neither of them wanted. Or worse, she’d hand him a wad of cash and tell him to buy himself something the next time he got the chance.

When he looks over the names of shops on the main street, Steve sighs quietly and parks his car. A part of him wants to make a point of buying nothing for his mom at all, just to see how little she cares. But then he remembers his father would probably chastise him. ‘You didn’t get her anything?’ he’d ask, just to uphold some bullshit family value that he only cared about to keep up appearances.

Steve buys exactly two things before going home that Friday night: a book about botany and morphology, since Dustin won’t shut up about plants as of late; and a Swiss army knife, for Nancy. He can only hope it’s received well, and doesn’t make things weirder than they already are.

No one is at the counter when he approaches with the knife, so he lingers there, staring down at the box in his hand. Thirty-three functions, huh? He’d buy one for himself, but he would probably forget it at home all the time, or just forget it exists all together. Plus, he’s fond of his little one-use pocket knife.

There’s the sound of a small _pop_ behind him. Steve leans against the counter and glances at a girl with wild blond hair as she blows another bubble with her gum. He doesn’t recognize her, but she looks like she’d be a party girl, so he can’t fathom _not_ knowing her.

She looks his way, too. _Pop._

“You need something?” she asks, then raises a brow, rolling her eyes.

Steve shakes his head, trying to disengage. She seems to accept that, but she watches him for a beat more, and moves around the row of merchandise, touching a backpack on the shelf. A head emerges from behind the other backpacks, where Steve can’t see, of someone who had been crouching.

“I wanted, like, a utility bag,” the second girl says, afro curls taking up the majority of Steve’s vision of her over the shelf. “These things are huge.”

The blond shrugs. “Cut off the front pouch and let’s bounce.”

“Real innovative.”

“You’re never satisfied, so I thought I’d just give you the next best option.” She bounces a little in place, then looks at Steve again. He looks away. He tries to be casual about it.

It’s pretty much that exact moment when the cashier comes up to the counter with a breathless apology. Something about a shipment coming in and being the only employee today. Steve smiles glibly through his purchase and puts the box with the knife in a bag himself.

On his way out, he doesn’t see the party girl or her friend, but he certainly didn’t hear them leave. Probably for the best. He gives a quick glance down at the receipt, passively trying to decide if he wants to keep looking or finally go home and mingle with mom and dad.

“Last minute Christmas shopping?”

Steve turns to the voice, slowing to a stop as he looks up from the receipt in his hand. Hopper is clipping his radio back onto his pants. He rolls his shoulder back, takes a quick glance inside the few shop fronts he can see from where he stands, then looks back to Steve.

“Yeah. Not much luck though… You?”

Hopper shakes his head. “I wait until the last minute to do last minute shopping.” He watches Steve smile and smiles back, but his expression drops a beat later as he puts his hands on his hips. “Look, uh… Have you seen anything. Y’know. Weird, today?”

Steve raises a brow. “Weird, how?”

“You know. Weird,” he repeats.

That doesn’t sound good. When Steve thinks about it rationally, he gets it. He does. Jim Hopper lives under the same roof as a little girl with otherworldly powers, and frankly, the sheriff’s seen more bizarre shit since El’s been around than most people will see in their entire lives.

But the Gate’s closed. So, no. Steve doesn’t know what he means by ‘weird.’

“Did something… happen?”

With a sigh, Hopper looks around them again. This time it’s not to investigate, but rather to make sure no one is listening in. “I know you kids like to think you have everything handled all the time. Like you can do everything on your own.”

“My faith in my abilities are much less than you’re giving me credit for,” Steve says.

“You don’t gotta be a wise mouth—I’m not—” Someone pushes open the door to the bookstore two doors down, and Hopper guides Steve closer to the sheriff’s truck. “Look, I’m not trying to insinuate anything. I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just asking. From me to you.

“You see something weird, you let me know. Okay?”

They both watch the older woman get in her car, and when Steve looks back at Hopper, concern strikes through him. “Yeah,” he says. His grip on his bags get a little tighter. “I’ll let you know.”

There’s a brief pause before Hopper claps him on the back. “Good man.”

With that, he strides forward into the shop Steve just came out of, and when the door closes behind him, Steve looks around again for those girls. All he sees is a few cars passing by the main road, some teenagers hanging out by their car with a dog, and a young man with a mohawk, arms crossed at the shop corner.

All sorts of weird types out today.

But certainly not the kind of weird he’s supposed to be keeping an eye out for.


	3. Chapter 3

Lucas as a DM is quite a bit different from Mike. For one, he doesn’t do a very good job of making his monsters or villains seem foreboding—in fact, there’s little stock put into describing exactly what they look like at all, other than turning the guidebook around if anyone’s fuzzy on what a specific creature looks like.

He does however, care deeply about the complexity of the puzzles he puts in the game, wanting them to be the roadblocks the player characters have to get around to progress the plot.

Another thing he seems to focus on is making sure all the player characters’ backstories tie in and no one is left out. Which is nice for Will, because it makes drawing their characters a lot more fun.

Or maybe not _more_ fun, but a different kind of fun. A new fun.

He stays the night at Lucas’ house the night before they have the game that week, answering questions about Will the Wise. They decided that after this campaign, they’re going to make new characters, so Will really wants to get everything out there about his cleric.

He’s even going on about it during dinner with the Sinclairs, and Lucas pulls the notebook up from his lap onto the table to write.

“May I be excused?” Erica asks.

“We just started dinner,” her father says, reaching for the salt to sprinkle on his green beans.

“But how am I supposed to _eat_ when Lucas is making me lose my appetite?”

He glances at Lucas’ notebook and gestures vaguely in that direction. “You know, you really _should_ put that away until after dinner.”

“ _Dad_ ,” Lucas complains, sharing a look with Will. “Inspiration waits for no man.”

His mother giggles softly. “Well, even inspiration needs fuel to run that big imagination of yours.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Sinclair,” Will says.

“No, honey. No need to be sorry. I don’t mind if you keep talking about it. It might be fun to know more about your game. Just…” She cuts into her enchilada, then glances up again after forking a chunk of it. “Maybe between bites?”

With a smile, Will nods and picks up his fork. “We were talking about how when my character was younger, he was always different. He was bitten by a werewolf as a teenager, and barely survived, but his family found him and kept the secret his whole life, making sure he never hurt anyone.”

“Wow,” she says, nodding, a small smile on her face as Will cuts a piece and puts it in his mouth. “They all sound very brave.” She makes an effort to be supportive, because she knows how much Will has gone through, even if she doesn’t know the details the way the kids do.

But what she doesn’t know is that this backstory has existed before Will was ever involved with Hawkins Lab, or any of the lies she’s been told by the news.

“He had friends from his travels, but he didn’t even tell _them_ about his secret. He just knew how to take precautions on nights of the full moon—he would take deep sleep potions to make himself sleep through the whole night.”

It’s about now that Will realizes Lucas is giving him a _look_ , subtly shaking his head. Now that his parents have drawn attention to it, it’s not really cool to talk about the campaign… Will is already aware Lucas doesn’t talk to his parents about the details of the game—that he’s more passive about it. But the idea of _not_ just talking to your mom about the things you enjoy doesn’t fully process until he sees it in action.

“So, now that he left home, he’s dealing with it all by himself?” Lucas’ dad asks.

Will gives Lucas a glance again, but he’s eating his food and has an elbow up on the table to block his face not-so-subtly from the conversation. “Basically—basically he, uh,” Will starts, excitement in his voice replaced with tension, “he met another man who was also a werewolf later on in his life. And he learned that he wasn’t so alone anymore… So.” Will shrugs, smiling softly, and also puts an elbow on the table to follow Lucas’ lead. “It’s not a big deal.”

There’s a clang of silverware on ceramic. “Okay! That’s it! I’m eating in my room,” Erica says, picking up her plate after getting out of her seat.

“No, you are not, young lady.” Mrs. Sinclair makes foreboding eye contact with her daughter, freezing her in place. Erica smiles, half-charming, half-sheepish. “You may eat in the living room if you’re careful and take a napkin.”

Lucas and Will look at each other, and Will isn’t expressing much at first, chewing slowly, but Lucas’ thankful grin ropes him in. It’s easy to devolve into giggles. Some directed at the ‘crisis averted,’ some at Erica not being able to stomach a little talk about werewolves, and in Will’s case, some just a little more nervous than that.

He knows it’s not a big deal. He knows Lucas wasn’t trying to shut him down or take any joy from him. Lucas didn’t even _say_ anything.

But he can’t help but feel a little more alone.

\--

“I’ll be back at seven to pick you up.” Mr. Sinclair hands Lucas a water bottle sitting in the passenger seat before he can get out of the back with Will.

“If we need to go longer, can I call you?”

“Longer? It’s not even noon, Lucas. Why would you—” 

But Hopper’s truck pulls up, so the kids usher quickly out of the car, Lucas just tossing back an overruling, “Thanks!”

They both know Mike was supposed to arrive with El, so after the door to the police truck opens, the kids wait eagerly, Will trying to tug on Mike’s sleeve the moment El gets out of the car before him.

Hopper has his attention—Mike glances once at Will, then back to Hopper. “Mike,” the sheriff says, head tilted down to eye him seriously. “Remember, when you’re done, you’re gonna—” 

“Yeah, I know. Make sure to come out with her, or make Steve come out with her, or— Yeah.”

“Good. I’ll be back at seven.”

Will takes Mike’s hand and Mike gives it a passive squeeze in return.

“You had a sleepover?” El asks Lucas.

“Yeah.” He looks between her and Mike, then says, “Did you?”

She shakes her head.

Before they even get to the front door, Steve’s opening it, head still angled inside. “You better not be doing what I _think_ you’re doing!” he yells, moving out of the way so the kids can enter. “Hey, guys.” He gives Hopper a wave, getting a nod in return, and the moment the front door closes, Hopper drives off, knowing El is safe.

“Is Max here?” Lucas asks.

“Yeah, yeah, they’re in the kitchen.” Steve takes the initiative to lead the way. “Don’t encourage them, though. I’m not starting a house fire for some stupid science project.”

Will, Lucas, and Mike share looks. El sniffs, the scent of smoke already wafting through the house—not enough that it’s visible to the eye, but enough that Steve takes his strides a little longer.

“Don’t touch it!” Dustin says, swatting at Max’s hand when the group enters the large kitchen. The center island is covered in little shot glasses filled with dirt and a large seed each, poking out of the soil. There’s five filled, three more resting off to the side with a shoebox labelled ‘Top Secret.’

“What did I say??” Steve demands. “No fire in the house! Take it outside and you can do what you want!”

Dustin puts his hands out. “Why’d you give me the lighter then?”

“So you could use it outside!”

“I have no impulse control, Steve!”

Max moves back towards the counter, both hands resting on the edge. The seeds are all shriveling in perfect sync, bending and shrinking down into the soil. “Dustin, look!”

Everyone’s focus shifts to the shot glasses with a fervid curiosity. El moves closer and the others follow, but Will isn’t moving from his spot, grip on Mike’s hand stopping even him from getting up close and personal. The moment Mike looks back at Will’s expression, he shakes his head. 

“What is this?” Will asks.

El answers before Dustin has a chance to blabber on about it. “Hive mind,” she says.

“Where did you get this??”

Dustin can sense the seriousness in Will’s voice, but he just tears his eyes slowly from the seeds when they’re done dissolving, then shrugs. “I’ve had them for a while. I’ve been dissecting a demodog and keeping notes on my research. You can read it if you want, but I just figured you wouldn’t—” 

“You _what_?” Lucas demands.

“What else did you think I was gonna do with that corpse we saved? Plus, it’s _awesome_.”

“Mrs. Byers told you to get rid of it,” Mike says. “She made you deep clean her whole fridge.”

Dustin drops his head back to stare open-mouthed up at the ceiling. “Oh, my God, Mike. Like _you_ listen to authority figures when they tell you what to do.” He rights himself, shaking his head. “If none of you want to learn about this really cool discovery, that’s fine with me. You don’t have to know about it as far as I’m concerned.”

Will finally lets go of Mike’s hand and takes a few steps back, then heads for the sliding glass door to go out by the pool.

“You should know better than this,” Mike says, glare in place for Will’s sake. He takes only a beat before following after him.

Steve crosses his arms and leans back against the counter by the cabinets (not the center island), watching the door close.

Also crossing his arms, Dustin surveys the expressions of the others in the room. “Is this not really cool?”

“No, I think it’s cool,” Max says.

“Lucas?”

Lucas is reluctant. “I’m not disputing if it’s cool, man. It’s just in bad taste.”

“But it’s cool.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

—

It’s cold outside, even as it gets closer to the heat of the day. That’s Hawkins with winter creeping around the corner for you. Mike heaves his shoulders up higher, hands curling on the inside of his jacket pockets as he approaches Will sitting in one of the lounge chairs by the pool. He has his arms wrapped around his knees, but he watches Mike warily, eyes stinging.

“You know he didn’t mean anything by it,” Mike says softly, sitting on the edge of the chair. “Even if he’s being a moron.”

“It’s fine.” Will thuds his forehead against his own knee, taking a deep breath. “I’m just being stupid. Give me a few minutes and I’ll get over it.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“…I know I don’t.” Staring hard at the ground, Will starts swaying lightly back and forth where he sits. “But I feel like I _should_. This isn’t even fair—like, not to me; to everyone else. It bothered me so much when everyone was treating me like a huge baby, and now…” Will shrugs hard with one shoulder. “Now it feels stupid to be upset about stuff like this.”

“Why? Why would it be stupid? It’s not like I think it’s a good idea for him to mess with Upside Down stuff either.”

“I don’t know?? Because… if I didn’t want them to treat me like I’m broken, or weaker, or— then I can’t prove everyone right and get upset when something happens that reminds me of—” Will stops swaying, tightening his grip on his knees. “I don’t want either. I don’t want _either_.”

Mike stays quiet for a beat, voice softening as he searches for the right words.

“Well, what _do_ you want?”

There’s no answer right away. Will’s form rises and falls as he breathes in the cold air, and eventually he tilts his chin up, softly looking over Mike’s face. Mike doesn’t pressure him to answer. He never does. His eyes are constantly scanning—constantly trying to understand. But as much as Will tells himself Mike understands, there are things he never could.

“I promise I just needed some time to process it,” Will eventually says, then lets his legs down over the side of the chair, moving close to Mike. He rests his head on Mike’s shoulder, putting his hands between his own thighs to keep them warm. “I’m okay.”

“Do you promise?” 

And it’s the first time he can remember lying to Mike, because he doesn’t know how to tell him this has little to do with the Upside Down.

“Promise.”

When they go back inside, Will is greeted by laughter that dies down to his presence, Dustin apologizing, and El giving him a supportive hug. Dustin has put his science experiment back in the box and closed it up, and with the promise of Pop Rocks candy from the Magic Depot, he lures everyone down into the basement so they can play their game.

The events upstairs are quickly forgotten by the rest of the party, and after an hour in Will starts to feel better. Stepping into the shoes of Will the Wise has always made him feel powerful; not like he’s someone else, but like he can be confident in his own skin. Nothing has ever compared.

It doesn’t hurt when he rolls the killing blow on the first boss they face. He looks at the faces of his friends, yelling for him, and thinks that he would take this over Bardic Inspiration any day.


	4. Chapter 4

When Steve’s father had left early that morning to go to work, he was kind enough to leave a note on the fridge telling Steve to clean the house. It didn’t specify what he wanted done, or which rooms to clean, so Steve goes out of his way to spot clean as little as possible with as much visible difference, and only in the rooms he knows his dad will frequent when he comes home.

He can hear the kids laughter from the basement when he takes out the trash—it’s loud and boisterous and lasts for as long as it takes him to walk out the front door. When he’s back in, it’s quieter again, soft murmurs carrying through the house, like the echoes of voices are in the walls and floor.

Around two, he makes a bunch of sandwiches. He only puts mayonnaise on two of them, because he knows for a fact Dustin likes it, and he likes it, too. He also knows for a fact, Lucas doesn’t. The other kids are a mystery, but hey, it’s easier to put it on than to take it off.

He refuses to be like his dad. That asshole doesn’t give two shits what you like to eat—he’ll make what he wants to make, how _he_ wants to make it, even if you ask him not to.

Steve even lets them eat downstairs, too. He sets everything up on the bar in the basement, leaving the mayo, mustard, and spicy mustard with the plates. When Dustin thanks him, the others follow with a cacophony of, “Thanks, Steve.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Just eat your lunch,” he says, waving them off as he heads back upstairs.

After that, Steve spends approximately ten minutes working on homework, before he remembers he hates school, so he closes the notebook and shoves it to the side. He watches TV instead. 

At about five o’clock, there’s stomping from below as the kids fast-track their way up to the first floor. They barge into the living room, talking over each other—throwing out ideas and accusations in a flurry.

“No _way_ was it—“

“I’m telling you, it’s just like we saw before—“

“Are you _sure_ you didn’t do something??”

Steve stands up. “ _Hey_ ,” he assails, hand up to quiet them. “What’s going on?” Max, Dustin, and Mike all try to speak. “ _One_ at a time.”

El takes a step forward, and everyone watches her.

“The lights went out. But first, they got bigger.” She shakes her head. “It wasn’t me.”

“What do you mean, ‘they got bigger?’”

She extends her hand and looks to the lamp beside the couch. With her powers, she turns it on. “Light.” Then, she flexes her hand and the bulb expands with brightness, just before the point of breaking.

“Bigger light,” Dustin says.

El stops.

The demonstration is enough to make Steve uneasy, but he tells himself there’s nothing to it. There’s no scary monsters or portals to another dimension, everything is fine, and sometimes weird things just happen for completely rational reasons.

And then he remembers Hopper coming to him to ask if he’s seen anything out of the ordinary, and Steve is hesitant again.

“Alright.” He moves past the kids, taking a deep breath as he gets in the lead to go down into the basement. The stairway is eerie as hell with the knowledge he has, and there’s a glint in the distance from a coin they used as a place marker for their game. Steve tries the lights. They don’t work at first, but as he repeatedly flips them up and down, they turn on with the second attempt. He relaxes instantly.

“They really _did_ just go out on us,” Will says. “We’re not making this up.”

“I know you’re not. I believe you. But… as much as I _hate_ to say this, it really _might_ just be faulty wiring.”

“But what if it’s not?” Dustin asks instantly.

Steve glances down at the now-illuminated room, nodding slowly as he thinks. They’re all so sensitive to the supernatural, that the idea of something having a normal cause seems more than outlandish.

“Then… we will figure it out. Together.”

The kids are all just staring down with him, until Mike looks at Dustin and breaks the silence. “This is punishment for messing with things you don’t understand,” he says seriously. It makes the hair on the back of Steve’s neck raise.

“Steve _just_ said it was faulty wiring!”

“Guys!” Lucas calls, and there’s something about him being DM that makes them still before they can start arguing again. “Let’s just go back down and if something happens, well… We have El, don’t we?”

She blinks, a little surprised.

Max adds, “Lucas is right. She’s a badass. And, I mean, we all kind of are.”

Steve touches Mike gently on the back. Mike pulls away pretty much instantly. “How about this? You guys let me know if anything else happens, and… while you’re playing, I’ll whip you up some brownies, okay? And this’ll all be a funny story to tell your parents when you get home.”

Even though that gets them to comply, Steve is still on edge when he steps into the kitchen. He glances at the light fixture up above, staring at it for a long moment. He thinks he sees it get brighter, but it’s like ghosts, and shadows, and fear itself. He knows that the real threats are plain as day.

Steve sets the box of brownie mix on the counter. Closing his eyes, he forces himself to focus on the feel of the box, the way his feet are planted firmly on the ground, and that soft hum of voices in the walls. He sees the demogorgon in the Byers’ home. He sees the dogs with the same face in the junkyard.

Steve suddenly feels like he should probably go get that bat out of the trunk of his car.

There’s a noise from outside, and for a brief moment, he thinks something’s possessed his car just at the thought of it. It only takes a second thought and a clearer mind for him to realize: no. It’s someone else’s car. 

Looking immediately in the direction of the basement door, he pushes off the counter and heads for the front of the house. Normally, he wouldn’t feel so off balance, but _El_ is here, and potentially odd things are happening. But most importantly, _El_ is here.

His hand is jerking at the doorknob before Billy is done walking up his driveway. Billy looks up with a raised brow, slowing to a stop.

“Someone’s eager,” he says.

The lack of response from Steve has Billy glancing down the street and back again, uncertainty edging it’s way onto his face, only there for a beat before it’s gone.

“What?” Billy asks. “I got something on my face? Look— Tell Max she fucked up and she needs to get her ass out here right now.” He doesn’t really look like he’s trying to interact. He turns to the side, pacing slightly, anxious and waiting.

Steve comes outside slowly and closes the door behind him. “They’re playing their game. Susan said she could come home at seven-thirty,” he says carefully. “I was going to drive her, so you don’t have to come back or—”

“I don’t need your permission?” Billy says, head tilting a bit. “Susan’s crazy if she thinks her word is law.”

“She’s Max’s mother.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He crosses his arms, shoeing the cement below his feet. “Believe it or not, I’m not here to argue with you, Harrington. I’m just doing what I was told to do.”

Steve gives a little shrug. “Why? You always do what you’re told to do?”

The little glance Billy gives Steve as he peers up from the ground is forewarning. “Don’t fuck with me.”

“I can’t say I’m warming up to the idea of having a repeat encounter with you, so if you want me to call Susan and get this all cleared up, I can do that. Otherwise…”

“Why do you insist on being a thorn in my side, huh? Why can’t you just tell her to come out here so I can talk to her myself?”

“Susan?” Steve asks.

“ _Max_. You idiot.”

Recovering easily, Steve shakes his head a little and mirrors Billy’s crossed arms. “You’re welcome to wait here until they’re done,” he says sweetly. Out here on the porch, in the cold. “But you don’t exactly look like you’re dressed for the weather.”

Billy hardens. “I’m done playing footsie with you.” The moment he takes the initiative to come forward however, Steve stops him, hand on his chest.

He says lowly, “You step through that door, and I call the chief of police for trespassing.”

It’s the particular way that Billy rolls back on his heels, searching Steve’s expression for a bluff, that really sits with him. Did Hopper actually confront Billy about that night? When Steve speaks again, Billy stares at his mouth, head back and haughty. Always a show that he’s better.

“Now, if you wanna be a decent human being,” Steve says, edge gone to his voice, “we can wait in the kitchen while the kids finish playing. Or you try to take Max now, and I call Chief Hopper.”

He doesn’t back off, but he doesn’t have anything to say to that either. The thin line of Billy’s mouth as it closes nearly looks like he’s forcing himself to shut up with lock and key—like all those open mouthed smiles were the gateway to an unfiltered tongue, and in this moment, he knows he needs it held.

Steve takes pity on him when Billy starts to look antsy, sidestepping so he can enter the foyer. “C’mon,” he says begrudgingly. “I’m making brownies if you want one.”

He’s honestly not sure if Billy is following him at first, just because his footsteps are so much quieter than Steve expected. He glances back as Billy closes the front door, then he makes headway to lead Billy into the kitchen. There’s a pretty strong confidence in the back of his mind that either a) the kids will hear Billy’s voice and know not to come upstairs, or b) _Steve_ will hear _them_ and make sure El doesn’t reveal herself.

He keeps himself angled toward the basement. It’s a few long beats of silence when Steve looks at Billy again, noting him just standing in the doorway and examining the kitchen.

“What did she do?” Steve asks, opening the box of brownie mix he left out.

It seems to pull Billy down from whatever plane of existence he was on. “What?”

“You said Max fucked something up.”

“Not the first time, won’t be the last…”

Steve grabs a bowl from under the island, shooting Billy a perplexed look. “…Okay. Ominous. But what did she _do_?”

Watching Billy Hargrove try to physically push past the urge to say something snarky is honestly a show of its own. Steve smiles just a little to himself. It’s funny. The idea that a normal person who can make normal conversation has to fight and claw his way out of him. It’s really funny.

If they were friends, Steve would tease him. Ask him if a cat caught his tongue. But he didn’t need to send Billy into a fit of rage again, especially with the kids in the house.

“Neil wanted to—” Billy corrects himself; makes sure to be pointed about it. “My _dad_ wanted to go Christmas shopping today. She wasn’t supposed to come over here. He was waiting for her to come home I guess? But, she didn’t. So.” Billy does the upper-body equivalent of a curtsy before leaning on the doorframe. “Here I am.”

“Why didn’t he come get her himself?”

“Well, you see… _My dad_ wants me to learn some responsibility, so he keeps me on Max duty.”

“As punishment,” Steve infers.

“Something like that.” The kids all cheer in unison and the noise from the basement is front and center for a couple seconds.

Steve goes to the fridge, originally to grab eggs for the brownies, but considering Billy’s being civil, he grabs two of his dad’s beers instead. He sets them on the counter, pulls the handle to a drawer, then uses a bottle opener to pop the lids. While the beer is still fogging at the neck, he brings it over to Billy, holding it at arm’s length. “For your troubles.”

“You serious?” Billy asks. When Steve shrugs, Billy takes the bottle and downs a gulp of it. He finally approaches the center island when Steve returns to the fridge, sitting on one of the stools with his beer. He makes himself comfortable. “What’s in the box?”

“Huh?” Steve cracks an egg, then looks at Dustin’s shoebox. He reads the ‘Top Secret’ label. “Oh. Nothing. It’s just Dustin’s. Soil. Experiment. For class.”

Billy gives a nod. 

“How many brownies do you want?” Steve asks, changing the subject.

“I don’t like chocolate.”

Steve’s stirring of the mix slows before picking up again. “Who doesn’t like _chocolate_?”

“Who likes kids enough to keep babysitting them?”

He tells himself he doesn’t care what Billy thinks of him, but he lies through his teeth anyway. “My parents cut me off, so I’m getting paid to do this.”

“What’d you do?”

“Uh—” Steve’s mind just fucking blanks. “Got caught with some weed,” is what he goes with.

“Nice going,” Billy says through a breath of a laugh. “Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of that stuff, either. Gives me a headache. Booze on the other hand…” He shakes the alcohol in his hand to draw attention to it, then lifts it to see he’s already making a dent. “Got anything stronger?” he asks.

“Don’t you have to drive home?”

“Yeah. But you’re making me wait.” He gestures around the kitchen, then takes another big swig. His mouth is still kind of making love to the bottle as he eyes Steve. “Making me _lounge_.” 

There goes the normal person who makes normal conversation—out the window. Steve stares him down for a moment, but he just sighs and turns around. He grabs the key to the liquor cabinet off the top of the fridge, then unlocks his mom’s classy display case.

“We have vodka or whiskey.”

“What do _you_ like?” Billy asks.

Steve’s back is to him as he opens his mouth and pauses. Jesus Christ. He can practically feel Billy’s gaze, and when he stares like that, he feels like Billy is going to eat him alive. Steve swiftly removes a bottle of Jack Daniels. “Whiskey it is,” he says before grabbing a couple of glasses.

Down from the basement, ruckus grows as everyone scrambles to talk over one another. Lucas yells, “Quiet!” clear enough to hear, which more or less does the trick.

Billy chugs a good portion of his beer as the whiskey glass slides his way, then uses the bottle to gesture in the direction of the noise. “What’re they even doing?”

“Dungeons and Dragons,” Steve tells him. “Apparently the yelling is normal.”

“ _Dun_ geons and _Dra_ gons.” Billy emphasizes every syllable. He gives a low hum in thought. “Maybe you should tell them to play a sport or something. You know. Avoid social _suicide_.”

“I’m not gonna tell them to do anything they don’t wanna do. They wanna play their little nerd game, they’re welcome to it.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be a good influence? You gonna just let them crash and burn like that?”

“I’m not exactly an expert, but uh… I’m pretty sure good influences aren’t supposed to make you do shit that makes you miserable. If any of those other snot-nosed brats take issue with ‘em, they can take it up with me.”

Billy chuckles, both hands cupping his glass. “You gonna take up beating on kids as a hobby?” When he downs a good portion of the whiskey like it’s a shot, Steve squints at him.

“Never said I was gonna beat them up. Just put some fear in their hearts. And only the ones who deserve it.”

“Hm. Like you tried to do with me?” 

The beep of the oven lets Steve know that it’s pre-heated, and it gives him an excuse to turn away to put the brownies in the oven. “Key word being ‘tried,’” Steve says as he wipes his hands off on the kitchen towel and slings it over his shoulder. He moves to lean back against the countertop. “But, hey, if I can’t handle a coupla kids, then my pride’s going to take a _damn_ big hit.”

“Nah,” Billy says, waving him off. “You could take me if you really put your heart into it. Or even if mine wasn’t, y’know? It’s not all about strength. It’s more… willpower. Motive.”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “You think I wasn’t motivated enough to beat the shit out of you when you grabbed Lucas?”

He doesn’t have something immediately snarky to say to that. In fact, Billy looks down at the whiskey in his glass, hands cupping it again. His shoulders are a little more stiff; his stature is a little less prominent. At first Steve wonders if this is a sign of guilt, but then he remembers the way Billy froze up outside at the mention of the police, and he knows it’s still self-preservation.

There’s a pounding up the stairs and Steve moves a few steps towards the sound to get a good vantage point before a solo (and out of breath) Dustin says, “Steve— Steve we need a—“ Dustin and Billy make eye contact. “…Fork.”

Guess the kids hadn’t heard his car outside after all.

Steve slinks his way back over to get into the silverware drawer, then hands the fork to Dustin in one fluid motion. “Scram, kid,” he says. “I don’t wanna know.”

Dustin doesn’t take it at first, mouth open as he analyzes the scene, then he visibly decides against saying anything. He take the fork with a very pointed, “ _Thank_ you,” glances Billy’s way, then _runs_ back down the stairs. In less than thirty seconds, the basement falls completely silent.

Steve wants to know if they actually think they’re coy. He rolls his eyes—this is the quietest it’s been in his house since their game began.

“Which one’s that one?” Billy asks.

“Dustin. Science project kid.” It’s funny how much that descriptor defines him.

“Ah.” When Steve scoops the empty batter bowl up to rinse off in the sink, Billy sits up straighter. “You should bring that downstairs,” he says.

“What?” It takes him a second because Billy offering him babysitting advice is… off-putting. “Oh. You think?”

“I know at least one of those brats will go for it.” His face is passive, even as he takes another gulp. He watches Steve pluck a number of spoons from the drawer and grab the batter-caked spatula, observing like a predator watching its prey.

There’s the sound of frenzied scuttling the second Steve is two feet from the door, and only half of the party makes it back downstairs from where they’ve been listening in. Mike and Max are crouched low halfway down when the door opens. Dustin is leaning against the wall at the bottom, looking anything but transient.

“Hey, Steve. What’s up?” Dustin salutes.

Steve carefully closes the door behind himself, starting his descent as he makes a point to make eye contact with all six of them. He sticks a finger in the bowl to get a swipe of batter. “What a shame,” he says idly. “I was planning on sharing this batter with you shitheads, only to find you spying on me?” He sets the bowl on the counter of the downstairs bar, shaking his head. “I’m heartbroken, man.”

Max is eyeing it with wide eyes. She stands up, having to tear her gaze away to look at Steve. “We weren’t spying.”

“No— No, no,” Lucas agrees, the one who made it closest to the table. “Not on _you_. We were just worried; you know.”

“Right,” Dustin says. “You shouldn’t ever have to face a boss battle alone.”

Steve has to look down and away to hide his smile at that because—that’s _so_ dorky and he can’t believe he’s touched by it, but he is.

“Alright, c’mere,” he says, holding out the the spoons and spatula: first come, first serve. “Share them, you got that? And I promise I’m okay. No need to worry about me.” He turns a little to look at El. “But if it sounds like he’s coming down here, I want you to hide, okay? Rule number one’s that you’re not supposed to be seen by anyone.”

She nods dutifully, then looks to Mike for instruction. He scans the room, then gestures to the bar with a partial shrug, noting it as the best hiding spot. Meanwhile, Max is somehow the first to Steve’s side, grabbing the spatula. Will gets a spoon, handing it to El, and Dustin just goes in with a finger like Steve had. 

Steve ruffles Dustin’s curls. “The brownies’ll be done in fifteen. You can have some _if_ you promise to stop spying. Otherwise, I’ll eat them all myself!”

“I promise,” Dustin says.

Lucas lightly swats the crossed fingers Dustin has behind his back, and Dustin shoots him a glare as Steve leaves.

Will says up to him, “If you need us… Just yell.”

The kitchen is still quiet when Steve returns, and Billy’s in the same place, but he’s reaching across the island for the bottle Steve left, pouring himself even more to drink. Steve still feels like he’s walking on thin ice, so he doesn’t protest.

“You know it’s bad when a bunch of brats are trying to defend your honor,” he says instead.

“They pooling money together for your obituary?” Billy jokes. “I’m honestly less of a threat under the influence.”

The comment demands an answer to just _how_ wasted Billy is—how much he had before he showed up, and more importantly, how much it’s affecting him.

Billy fixes him with an amused gaze. “How’d the battle down there go? Did she fight them off?”

Only because the sentiment seems fond, Steve is thrown for a loop. “For the chocolate?” Steve clarifies. “She was like a moth to the flame.”

“Her mom does that every time she bakes.” He clicks his tongue, and then, like an afterthought, with added glance at Steve, he says, “Thought it’d be funny. With so many of them down there. I dunno."

Steve studies him. The sentiment was genuine, then? He just wanted to do Max a favor? Take no credit for it?

He has to remind himself that there were times he’d talk to Tommy only to hear the guy say something so uncharacteristically deep, or bizarrely introspective. Some days, he even looked up to Tommy. Steve wanted to be more insightful, or more cultivated, or whatever bullshit he felt at the time.

But everything was so moment by moment that way. And when he started to look at the bigger picture, he could see Tommy wasn’t some life guru at all. He was just a pessimist who knew how to say the right thing at the right time every once in awhile.

“I’m gonna be up shit creek when I get home,” Billy says through what can only be described as a proud smile. He’s starting to slur his words, but he has a handle on it, and Steve’s only picking up on it because he’s been around so many drunks in his lifetime. “This big house have a fancy music system?”

Steve glances at the clock on the stove to mentally keep track of when the kids parents will be coming by, but he nods and tosses the kitchen rag on the counter. He leads Billy into the living room. It’s a lot easier to keep the guy happy when the things he wants aren’t at the expense of other people.

He turns it on, and turns it up just a few notches more than his parents normally like it, then gestures to the collection of tapes. “Have at it,” Steve tells him. He crosses his arms and watches for a few moments, but it takes Billy a long time to decide (likely due to the alcohol), and he’s nodding along already to the slow sound of _The Long and Winding Road_ from the floor before he chooses from the selection _._ It’s such a stark contrast to what Billy usually blasts in his Camaro.

Steve makes his way back to the kitchen to clean up. Eventually the song ends and a new _Beatles_ song starts to play. He must have decided this was what he was in the mood for.

After the time is up on the brownies, he brings them down to the kids and tells them to start finishing up.

It’s when he peers into the living room afterwards that he discovers Billy sitting still on the floor, leaning against the couch, a few tapes scattered around him as the _Beatles_ continue to play.


	5. Chapter 5

Lucas’ father arrives a minute before seven, punctual as always. Hopper is ten minutes late, which is actually pretty good for him, and Steve is mindful to make sure Billy is still out cold before bringing El outside. Hopper asks about the Camaro, but Max assures him that no one spoke to her, so when Steve agrees, Hopper is satisfied. He takes the two kids again—Mike and El—so Steve is left with Dustin, Will, and Max to drive home.

A part of him is dreading having to wake Billy, because he knows there’s a chance he’s going to make a scene.

Steve feels that his suspicion must be correct: there’s no way Billy was sober when he showed up at the Harrington’s. Not that he’s entirely confident one beer and two glasses of whiskey _couldn’t_ put the guy out like a light, but he thinks Billy is probably a little more tolerant than that.

“We could draw on his face while he’s sleeping,” Dustin suggests. Max snickers, but doesn’t encourage it further.

“No,” Steve says flatly. “Do you want him to have a vendetta against you? You’re smarter than that.”

“I do _not_ claim to be.” Dustin tears open a package of Pop Rocks and pours them into his hand before eating them.

Steve sits on the couch beside Billy, leaning over enough to pat him on the back. “Hey, man. Nap time’s over,” he says. When Billy moves slightly but makes it clear he isn’t getting up, Steve looks to Max. She urgently shakes her head with a shrug. Steve shakes Billy and gets him to stir enough that Steve can help him to his feet. Awkwardly, he supports half his weight.

Steve tosses his car keys to Dustin. “Open the passenger door for me, huh?”

Dustin does as he’s told and the kids get in the back seat.

“You don’t think he’ll be mad, do you?” Will asks softly as Steve drops Billy into the car. He wasn’t there for the fight over a month ago, but he knows everything that happened, and he’s just glad Lucas isn’t here for this.

“He’s always mad,” Max responds. It sounds sad.

The car ride to the Byers’ residence is eerily quiet. He drops off Will and Dustin together, Dustin departing only with a clap on Steve’s shoulder and a, “Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

The silence is actually starting to get to him. It makes the road feel darker. Steve glances into the rear view mirror as they get back on track to Max’s house. “He came looking for you because of some Christmas shopping plans,” Steve says. “Something about your stepdad wanting to take you out today?”

Max scoffs. “Well, no one mentioned that to me.”

“I’m just letting you know. ‘Sides, he waited for you anyway. Maybe not… willingly, towards the end there.” Steve turns his head to check in on him, then watches Max in the mirror once more as they come to the stop sign. “If you’re feeling like a saint, you could leave some aspirin in his room,” he suggests.

“He wouldn’t if it was the other way around.”

“No,” Steve says. He thinks about Billy suggesting he bring the brownie mix down to the kids, and how out of place it was. “Probably not.”

\--

It’s not even inherently because Steve _cares_ that he worries when he doesn’t see Billy in second period the next day. They don’t have first period together, but when he notices Hargrove’s spotlight isn’t taking up the room, he feels a pang of guilt. Steve _was_ the one who let him indulge in his poisons of choice, and even if it was to pacify him, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to give a guy who’s already struggling with demons a good twelve ounces of whiskey and a beer.

During lunch, Billy finally shows up, just as loud and boisterous as always, and he sure does make an entrance. He waves over lackeys like they’re trained dingos, and he gets in line for his food.

Steve waits until Billy is seated with his dogs before he tries to engage. At first, he tries to test the waters by throwing a few looks Billy’s way, hoping they can make some kind of indicative eye contact to give Steve an idea where they lie.

He gets nothing in return.

Getting up from his seat, Steve pushes his sunglasses up into his hair and makes his way to the table.

“Hey, Hargrove,” he says neutrally.

There are two girls with him, and a guy from the basketball team, and all three of them shift their focus to Steve. Whatever had a smug smile on Billy’s face before fades with Steve’s voice, and he turns to look at Steve slowly.

Josh, the guy from the basketball team, speaks first. “Steve, Steve, Steve,” he says, with clearly no aim to it but to make himself sound cool.

One of the girls, Jennifer, smiles at him. “You going to join us?”

Steve raises a brow at Josh, then smiles thinly back at Jennifer. “I’m good, thanks.” He nods in Billy’s direction. “Just wanted to offer you a ride to pick up your car after school,” he says.

Billy isn’t smiling. He looks cold as ice, and Steve isn’t sure what it means, so he looks away briefly and has to mentally kick himself for yielding.

“I don’t need your charity,” Billy says. “Some nerve you’ve got— Those chummy vibes are making me sick!”

Josh smacks Billy across the chest. “Wait, what happened to your car? Did you get it towed??”

“Billyyy,” Jennifer whines.

It’s not like Steve was expecting Billy to treat him like they were friends, but the complete one-eighty still gives him whiplash. “Wha—Jesus, man, I figured you’d appreciate a lift. If you’d rather walk home, be my guest.” He looks at Jennifer, feeling just a little miffed, so he tacks on, “I benched him last night so he wouldn’t drive himself and his sister home drunk and get them both killed.”

Josh scoffs in amusement, then breaks into a little snicker. “Really?”

Billy side-eyes Josh to shut him up before staring Steve down. He doesn’t need to use words. He gets up from his seat, pushes his hand up against Steve’s chest, then gestures to one of the doors that leads to the outside portion of the cafeteria. Steve takes a few small steps back even though everything in his mind is telling him to stand his ground, and eventually he gets the gist and continues backwards, never breaking eye contact.

“What, man?” he says. “Can’t handle it when someone else dishes?”

“You shouldn’t’ve done that,” Billy spits. There might as well be a vein popping in his forehead. “You should’ve fucking _known_ better, and you threw me under the bus.”

“Well maybe _you_ should stop acting like a dick for five goddamn seconds. You’d be surprised how much further you get with people.”

“I’m not talking about right now— I’m talking about last night.” Billy clicks his tongue, starts, “You do that shit again, and,” snatches the sunglasses off Steve’s head, “I won’t let you forget it.” He’s ready when Steve tries to reach out futilely for them, but he keeps Steve back and puts them on his own head like they’re a trophy.

“Hey, man, you wanna risk your own damn life, then fine, but I wasn’t letting Max climb in that car with you.”

“If you care so much about her, why don’t you drive her home every fucking day, Mother Theresa? You’re already halfway there! Next time, let me fucking drive myself.”

“Fine, I will!” Steve snaps. “I’m sure she’d prefer it to being stuck in a car with you all the time, asshole! You wanna kill yourself? Be my guest!”

Billy is vibrating with anger. He shoves hard at Steve’s shoulder, but he moves past him and tears the door to the cafeteria back open without another word. Steve is _very_ aware he still has his sunglasses, but all he can manage is to cross his arms and scowl as Billy leaves.

Steve gives it a good thirty seconds before he goes back in, and he keeps his head down as he heads for the main doors out into the hallway. There are a few people scattered about outside the cafeteria in the hall, but they pay him little mind. He feels aimless—not really sure if he should wait in his next class before the bell rings, or waste time in the bathroom, or—

“Steve?”

The sound of Nancy’s voice pulls him down from the simmering rage that is his headspace. He slows to a stop and looks to her where she’s just come out of the girl’s restroom. There’s a faint sound of sobbing from inside until the door closes all the way.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

Managing a fraudulent smile, Steve tries to collect himself. “Yeah. Just got into a little disagreement. Not like a fight or anything.” He wipes his nose with the back of his hand absently, then gestures to the bathroom. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Oh.” Her empathy shines through her face and Nancy shakes her head slightly, lowering her voice. “It’s Megan— Megan Foster. Her boyfriend… he broke up with her— Just left a note in her locker after second period…”

Steve nods, trying to seem knowledgeable. He recognizes the name as a girl who has dark hair and usually wears it up, but he’s maybe spoken two words to her, so he doesn’t know what to say. “Dick move.”

“Yeah… I’ve been in there since math ended, but she won’t come out of the stall. I’m going to go get her something small to eat and see if she’ll take it. Wanna come with me?”

It feels like a test, just like everything does with Nancy these days, even if he knows she’s not that kind of person. But God knows he doesn’t want to go back in there. “Oh, uh—”

The door to the girls’ bathroom opens. There stands the baggy-eyed Megan Foster, the skin around her eyes red and swollen, her hair swept in every which way in an effort to get it out of her face. She looks just as distraught as she sounded moments ago, but she’s no longer crying. She’s smiling.

She’s grinning.

“Nancy! I think I can fix this,” she says, her voice cracking from sinuses, but otherwise sounding certain.

Steve pulls a face. He shares a glance with Nancy, but she’s just as confused. Megan comes forward and wraps her arms around Nancy in a firm embrace. “Thank you so much for everything. You were right— You were so right: he’ll miss me when he realizes how much I did for him.”

She gives a tentative pat on her back, still looking to Steve like a cry for help. “That’s… not what I meant, Megan. I think you—”

“Don’t worry,” she says, “I have such a good feeling about this.” She pulls away, shining with enthusiasm that somehow looks genuine. She gives a small noise of delight. “Oh, I forgot my bag,” Megan adds, popping back into the bathroom.

Steve and Nancy are both speechless, and she has her mouth slightly open in bewilderment. When Megan returns, she thanks Nancy again, and she’s off down the hallway, skip in her step. They both watch her go.

“That was weird, right?” Steve asks after a beat.

Nancy is still struggling to understand what just happened. “I’m… just… going to go eat,” she says carefully. “I want— Can we talk later? I’m, uh…”

“Yeah. Of course.”

\--

The rest of the day feels like a dream. Steve feels a little bit like Megan Foster—the emotional whiplash has been taking a toll on him, but he feels like he’s probably handling it more like a normal person than she had. He thinks about Billy, especially the desire to get back at him for being an absolute tool, and he thinks about Nancy. Moreso, he _over_ thinks about Nancy. Did she mean she wanted to talk later because she had something specific to say? Or was it just a general ‘I want to talk to you’?

When the final bell rings, Steve jolts. He has a plan to make a point of taking Max home, so he gathers up his things quickly. Steve maneuvers through the halls with cat-like reflexes, and he shoves his things in the back seat of his car before waiting for the nerd squad to come out. Even in December, everything is bright enough that he’s squinting without his sunglasses. It makes his vendetta feel even sweeter.

“Max!” he shouts the moment he sees her, Dustin, and Lucas. He nods her over when she looks his way, hands in his pockets. When she skates over to him, the others don’t follow—they’re probably waiting on the rest of the crew.

“What’s up?”

“I’m driving you home today,” Steve says. “Unless you were planning on going to the arcade with those bozos.”

“You’re driving me home?” That’s incredibly nice to hear, since she was going to skate home and she forgot to bring a bigger jacket today, but— “It’s Monday.”

“I know,” he says amicably. “Get in.”

She throws up a peace sign at the boys who give her confused looks in return. She buckles her seatbelt. “You don’t have to help me out, y’know. Not that I don’t, like, appreciate it.”

Steve shrugs, rolling down his window part way. He spies Billy, who has the audacity to wear his fucking shades, and Steve stares him down for a long second before pulling out of his parking spot. “Call it making a point to your brother,” he says.

“What point are we making? Whatever it is, I’m on board.”

“Just the usual,” Steve says with a small ‘hmph’ of satisfaction. “He sucks at taking care of you and I’m a better big brother slash babysitter.”

“Oh, totally.” She pauses, then looks at Steve, voice smaller than usual. “Big brother?” She tries to make it sound skeptical.

“Don’t get too excited,” Steve says. “It’s just a figure of speech. And then, in direct contradiction to that, he adds, “You want a milkshake before I take you home?”

“Hell yes! You serious??”

With a grin, Steve flips his turn signal on to head into town. “Yeah, I’m serious! Joe’s it is, kid.”

The drive is only about five minutes, and Steve feels warm. It makes his day so much better making Max happy, and it doesn’t hurt knowing Billy will probably have to ask one of his fake friends for a favor to get his car.

The wait for their milkshakes is short, mainly because they were one of the first arrivals after school, and the high school is the biggest influx during this time of day.

They sit down at a booth, Steve with his peppermint shake, and Max with a chocolate one.

“Hey, Steve…” Max starts, unsure. She looks anxious. “If I asked you something, would you be honest with me?”

Well, that’s never a good sign. Steve clicks his tongue after setting his drink down. “I mean, yeah—” And he instantly backtracks. “Look, if Dustin said something, he’s a liar.”

Max scoffs. “What? No. I just— I wanna know… if you’re, I dunno… like… trying to make up for how Billy treats me by being nice to me. There’s just— There’s a difference between wanting to be my friend because we’re _cool_ , and because… you’re just taking pity on me.”

There’s a weight to it that Steve doesn’t know how to address. He remembers being insecure at that age, and hell, he’s still insecure, just way better at hiding it.

“Look, kid. Right now, I just really want a milkshake, you feel me? You just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

“But in the spirt of honesty… I’m may be driving you home to prove a point that I’m better than him. Since that asshole doesn’t seem to care about anything other than his precious car.”

She breathes a sigh of relief, then she’s able to smile freely. “So, it’s about him, and not about me. That’s all that matters.” Max leans her fist against her cheek, elbow resting on the table as she tilts the glass and slurps through the straw. She looks up and away, a joking smugness in her voice. “It just sucks, ‘cause like, I know all his deepest darkest secrets, but if I told you, he’d totally kill me.”

“You could always tell me some _smaller_ deep, dark secrets. Like, does he sing in the shower?”

She snorts, brow crinkled. “Do _you_?”

“That’s like asking if I was in church choir from third to sixth grade: yes. Yes, I was.”

Max laughs, and then she shivers and switches topics. “Guh, only _you_ would make a milkshake sound like a good idea when it’s freezing outside.”

“Are you complaining?” Steve asks, challenging her. “Better question: are all Californians as thin-skinned as you?”

“Pretty much.” Putting her hands between her thighs, she shakes her leg up and down rapidly as the ice-cream permeates through her whole chest. “I can’t wait to go back. I’m visiting my dad over the summer and he’s going to take me to Disneyland.”

“Yeah? I bet you went a lot since you grew up over there. My parents took me to Disney World once when I was a kid.”

“Is Disney World like way bigger or something?” she asks.

“Yeah. They’ve got a bunch of different parks in one place, so it’s not just a nauseating amount of Mickey Mouse.”

“Be careful,” Max says, pulling her shake close to the edge of the table. “If Mickey hears you smearing his good name, he might do something about it.”

Steve gives a soft laugh, shaking his head at her. “Wouldn’t be the first time I felt threatened by a cult-like conspiracy.”

They both manage to get through their drinks with minimal brain freeze. Max shivers again as they leave the booth, and Steve is just about to tell her he’ll pump the heat up in his car, but when he looks out the window, he catches sight of a girl with wild dirty-blonde hair— _party girl_ —and she’s with a guy sporting a mohawk he vaguely remembers seeing a few days before.

“We should be staking out the _middle school_ ,” he hears the girl say, and the words make Steve stiffen just enough to put him on edge. He grabs Max’s arm lightly and guides her further from them, easily avoiding eye contact with the blonde as Joe’s becomes a prime hot spot, just shy of swarming with people.

“Get in the car,” Steve tells Max, handing her the keys.

“What?”

“Just go turn up the heat, okay? I’ll just be a sec.”

He tries to look natural as he moves around the parking lot, avoiding the two of them. Steve weaves between two cars and lingers there for a moment before stepping back up onto the sidewalk a bit behind them, getting closer to a few younger high school kids who are waiting and chatting amongst themselves.

They’re hard to hear at first, as everyone else around them and the sound of car wheels on the salted blacktop is a much more all-consuming noise. Steve risks it, getting closer.

“That’s not the issue… No one knows where she is,” mohawk says.

“But _we_ do.”

“ _No_. We know she’s in the middle of the forest somewhere with some _cop_.”

Steve freezes. So many alarms go off in his mind at the same time, head pounding.

“Whatever,” party girl says, “I’m cold.”

Taking a few steps backwards, Steve tries to snake himself back the way he came. There’s no payphone outside of the restaurant, so he shoots Max one quick glance and puts up a finger before going back inside.

The cashier gives him a weird look when he asks to use their phone, which is in big part because he looks urgent. He curls his hand into a fist as he speaks with her, and curls his finger around the phone cord by the second ring. With one call to the station, he asks for Police Chief Hopper.

“Remember when you told me to tell you if I saw something weird?” Steve asks. “There’s something _weird_.”


	6. Chapter 6

It’s par for the fucking course.

Steve notices the _second_ he gets close enough to the window that the suspects are missing, and with heart racing, there’s a fire in his steps: he bolts out the front entrance of Joe’s, scanning the parking lot and the adjacent streets ardently. Just as he’d lost the girls outside the Army Surplus, he sees party girl and her weird friend have disappeared.

Steve makes his way to his car in a flurry. He pulls open the driver’s side door and fixes his eyes on Max. “Did you see where they went?”

“Who??” she demands with just as much urgency.

“Those—those weird—” A noise escapes him from the back of his throat as he tries to hand gesture to Max’s chagrin. “There was a guy with a mohawk,” he manages.

She looks out over the few groups of people outside. “Yeah— I think they got in a van. Steve, can you, like, tell me what’s going on—”

“What— What kind of van?”

“Like a van?!”

“Like a big van? Did it have stripes on it?”

“I—What??”

“Did it have stripes on it, Max??”

“I don’t know! Yeah?! I think so?!”

“Fuck,” he spits, then crosses his arms and gets in the car, closing the door firmly behind him. From where Max sits with her knees pulled up to her chest, she drops her feet to the carpet and pulls her seatbelt on the moment Steve starts up the engine.

“What are we— Are we chasing them or something?” she asks.

His grip on the steering wheel is tight. Steve squeezes his eyes shut, then looks over to Max before leaning forward to press his forehead to the wheel. If he didn’t have Max in his car, maybe. But even then, what was he supposed to do?

“No,” he says after a moment. “We’ll just wait for the chief to get here and I’ll tell him what happened, and then… I’ll drive you home.”

“What?” Max leans forward. “Something’s happening and you’re just going to take me _home_?”

Steve can’t believe what he’s hearing. “ _Yes?_ ”

“Maybe if you told me what was going on, I could help?”

With a sigh, he finally moves his car, backing out so he can park in a different spot further away from the shopfront to easily flag down Hopper when he arrives. “That’s the thing. I don’t really know what’s going on. Just that… it’s nothing good.”

“Real informative.” She turns more towards him, pulling off her seatbelt again. “Friends don’t lie, Steve."

“What: is that your little group catchphrase now or something?” He’s heard Dustin say it before, and frankly, it makes him feel like a pretty shitty person.

“It’s just a fact,” she says. “Friends don’t lie to each other.”

“I’m not lying. I don’t _know_ exactly what I’ve seen, or heard, or what’s happening. You got that? It’s all… bits and pieces. Sometimes you just… get a feeling in your gut and you gotta go with it.”

It’s clear Max doesn’t like that answer, but she doesn’t know what to say to it immediately, so she crosses her arms and sits back in her seat with a light thud. Steve watches a Volkswagen leave the lot and at the last minute, he realizes post-breakup Megan Foster is in the passenger seat, singing along to the car stereo. She looks like she’s having the time of her life. It does _not_ make him feel any more comfortable.

Every little bizarre thing that has happened to Steve burdens his mind further. Megan, those girls at the army surplus store—one of whom he _just saw_ —hell, even the damn lights flickering in his house the other night… Steve feels like he’s going fucking crazy: like he doesn’t know what’s real and what his mind is just using to play tricks on him. He sinks further into his seat, and doesn’t come out of his funk until Hopper shows up.

The man has the eyes of an owl, wise and seemingly everywhere at once, and he knocks on Steve’s window with the back of his hand. Steve jumps a foot in the air, pulled out of his head, and cranks down his window, starting off with an apology.

“There were two teens I don’t recognize outside,” he says, keeping quiet. “I don’t know where they went, but they know about—” Steve doesn’t know if he can say it, so he puts up both index fingers next to each other.

Hopper licks his lips and smacks them, looking one-part uncomfortable and one-part taken aback. “You’re sure about this?” Steve nods. “And you don’t know where they went?” He shakes his head.

“No,” he admits aloud, rubbing his forehead with the palm of his hand. “I lost sight of them. I just know they’re in a whiteish? Yellowish? Van. It’s got, like, uh, stripes across the middle.”

“Okay,” Hopper says. “This is what we’re gonna do.”

He outlines a plan to meet up at the station after Steve drops Max off. She’s not actively trying to make it look like she’s pouting when they leave Joe’s, but she doesn’t say anything and turns up the radio, tapping her finger on her knee to the beat.

In some cosmic show of irony, while cresting one of the last hills to the Hargrove residence, they see Billy walking along the side of the road, slowly making his way as he smokes a cigarette. Steve eases his foot off the gas.

“Do I pick him up?” Steve asks. It’s an honest question, because even he doesn’t know if he wants to deal with the backlash after the day he’s had. He’s satisfied enough knowing Billy walked at all, and he doesn’t want the guy randomly showing up outside his house when he least expects it.

“Drive next to him.” Max starts to roll down her window as Steve complies. “Need a ride?” Billy looks her way, then gives a small scoff before taking another drag. “You’re going the wrong way if you want to get your car.”

He shakes his head, staring down at the ground, then exhales. “How the hell did I even get here before you?”

Steve shares a look with Max. “Uh—We stopped and got milkshakes.”

“Oh, you’re bonding. _Wonderful_.”

“You could’ve got a milkshake too,” Max says. “If you weren’t such a _jerk_.”

“Fuck off, Max. I wasn’t talking to you.”

“I mean, she’s not wrong,” Steve adds. “C’mon, man. My heater’s running and we’re letting the air out.”

Billy stops. He turns partway towards the car, drops his cigarette butt on the ground, and grinds in into the asphalt with the toe of his shoe. He looks them both over once before tugging the door open to get in the back seat without another word on the matter. Steve’s sunglasses are perched atop his head and it takes restraint not to reach back there to snatch them.

Max watches Billy in the side view mirror as she rolls up her window, adjusting the vent to angle it more her way. “We’re not in California anymore,” she says. “You should dress accordingly.”

He mutters, “Unbelievable,” under his breath, but leaves it at that.

When Steve pulls into the drive way, he parks and Max gathers up her things. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says to Steve. He gives her a warm smile and a salute.

“Come up front,” Steve tells Billy.

“What?”

“ _What_ what? You wanna go get your car or not?”

So when Max gets out, Billy does too, not looking at either of them as he gets in the passenger seat. Max is a little wary, but she also has a lot on her mind, so she offers an ounce of sympathy with her expression, pulls her backpack up higher on her shoulder and goes to unlock the door as they leave.

“You aren’t honestly giving _me_ the cold shoulder for this morning,” Steve says. “You’re the one who got pissy.”

“People are going to notice,” Billy says instead, ignoring him. “If you keep hanging out with her alone. That’s not a threat, or an insult. People live for drama.”

Steve sighs a little and glances at Billy out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah,” he agrees. “You’re right.” As if he hadn’t been dreading the concept that he barely spends any time with people his own age these days, and he’s sure it’s going to start turning heads soon enough, especially considering how little goes on in Hawkins. It gives him anxiety, mostly for the kids’ sake.

“You’re social life is…” Billy makes a noise like an attempt at something falling from the sky, accompanied with a thumbs down as a visual. “Ben feels like you’re giving him the cold shoulder.”

“You care about my social life now?” Steve deflects, because he’s right. “Ben can get over himself. He’s only concerned with popularity.”

Billy rolls his head over the headrest, chin tilted up to look at Steve through narrowed eyes of scrutiny. “You’re _not_?”

Steve goes quiet; thoughtful.

“Not anymore. I have more important things to worry about.”

“Like— what? You don’t care what people think of you, Harrington?”

“It’s not gonna matter in a year; two—who cares, right?” Steve says. “Who knows, maybe we’ll all be dead in a couple years, anyway.”

Billy turns and gazes out the front window again, letting that set in. “And what if that’s what does it?” he asks, softer.

Shaking his head, like he’s coming out of a trance, Steve says, “Sorry—what?”

“What if not caring what people think of you is what gets you killed?”

It’s such a weird sentiment and Billy sounds so serious, that Steve has to laugh a little. “What, you ever heard of someone dying from a popularity contest?”

The mood in the car shifts instantly as they turn onto Steve’s street. Billy sinks down in his seat and stares down at his lap, setting his jaw before relaxing it again, his lips parting. When Steve catches sight of his expression, he can only describe him as looking betrayed. He has the presence of mind to realize he’s fucked up.

“I—sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t always think before I open my stupid mouth, man. Just fuckin’—“ Steve can’t even put a finger on _why_ he’s apologizing. He doesn’t even like this guy, but hell, his sad puppy dog face is on par with Dustin’s.

“Just forget it,” Billy says.

Steve doesn’t know how to fix something when he’s not even sure what he’s done wrong. When he pulls in his driveway, the car shakes from the force of his brakes, and he turns to look at Billy.

“I really am sorry, and uh…” Billy crinkles his face into a confused grimace, not sure if watching Steve stumble over his words is pleasurable or not. “If you wanna just,” Steve mimes punching himself on the cheek. “Y’know, just one good freebie.”

He squints his right eye shut in anticipation, but instead of punching him in the jaw, Billy just takes off the glasses perched on his head and hands them out to Steve to return them, folded up. Steve is sure it’s a ruse at first, but he does actually get them, and Billy gets out of the car to light a cigarette. Somehow it feels like an apology in return, for what happened that morning, even though it’s not.

“You’re a fucking enigma,” Billy says plainly with the paper between his lips as Steve steps out and shuts the door.

Steve scoffs. “ _I’m_ an enigma? This morning was like fighting off a rabid dog.” He muses how it’s not too far from something he’s _actually_ done. There’s a brief moment of quiet when Steve fully realizes Billy doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere, leaning against the hood of Steve’s car.

“I had that girl, uh—” Billy makes a gesture with his hand as he tries to recall her name. “Beth, from English class, forge Susan’s signature today. Gave it to the front office after school, and lemme tell you… You ever need to skip without your parents finding out? She’s an _artist.”_

“My parents aren’t really around enough for that to be a problem. A coupla old friends of mine used to get her help, though,” Steve says. “I used to tell her she should start charging people; make a real business out of it.”

Billy nods absently, blowing out smoke. The steam from his breath mixed with the cold air makes the little cloud of white that leaves him even more prominent.

“It must be nice having this big house to yourself, huh? Don’t have to worry about your folks barking up your tree.”

Steve shrugs. “Yeah, it’s alright, I guess,” he says noncommittally, because it’s better than saying that without Nancy stopping by, it’s more lonely than anything.

Studying him, Billy taps off his ash, then licks his lips.

“You don’t like being alone.” It’s not a question. “I don’t really like it, either. Anything’s better than the quiet, alone with your thoughts.”

Steve chuckles uncomfortably, not liking how vulnerable he feels when Billy can read him like that. “Yeah, you’re telling me.” He wants to say something—something cool; something that hits to the heart of this… moment with Billy. But he can’t seem to find the words. It’s the first time he’s had a conversation with someone in weeks that felt like he was on the same level as them, and didn’t make him feel out of place.

“Maybe next time I’ll call you up when I’m feeling lonely,” Steve says, before he realizes how it sounds.

He swallows, but Billy breaks into a slow, nearly psychotic smile, and Steve has to look away.

“You gonna feel lonely this Saturday?” Billy asks. Whatever Steve was expecting, it wasn’t that. “My old man has the whole weekend off. I was gonna find something to occupy my time with, but hey.” Billy whistles lowly and shakes his head.

“Uh—Yeah, sure. You been to the quarry, yet? It can be a pretty popular hangout spot, but it’s big enough you can avoid most people when you just wanna blow off some steam.”

“If you don’t mind me chucking rocks in the water and complaining about God’s green _earth_ for hours on end.” With a scoff, Billy blows some smoke up into the sky, angling his head upwards. “I swear, if they fucking decide to go _out_ and I’m put in charge of Max _again_ , I’m gonna lose my _shit_.”

Max’s name is a trigger word—it reminds Steve of where he’s supposed to be right now, and it’s certainly not standing outside his house in the cold talking to Billy Hargrove.

His fingers curl around the keys in his jacket pocket. “Shit,” he mutters to himself. “I gotta go.” Steve pats the hood of his car and tugs the driver’s side door handle. “You just reminded me,” he explains.

Billy backs off, holding his arm without the cigarette across his chest as he watches Steve’s departure.

The amount to which he seems like a different person when he’s on his own, versus when he’s around other people, boggles Steve’s mind. He wonders which persona is fake: the first assumption is that the public one has to be, but… if he knows something Steve doesn’t, or is trying to get something from him, it’s just as likely this one is.

But it certainly feels more real.

He doesn’t discount that Billy’s _anger_ is real, especially not when he’s fallen victim to the guy’s fist in his face. That kind of vendetta, whether out of rage, or for fun, or when pushed to the limit by adrenaline… _That_ was real.

When Steve takes himself out of the moment—when he sheds some light on reality—two things are abundantly clear.

One: there’s this other version of Billy that makes himself known when he’s not in his spotlight, not quite as ferocious or unrefined.

And two: Steve doesn’t completely hate him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, officially, I'm going to be updating every 2-4 days. I'm only two chapters ahead of myself, so I wanted to get some more buffer room unless something comes up (staying four chapters ahead is the goal). I'll be posting Sunday and Wednesday, then hopefully mostly every other day unless I feel I can't! I honestly have no idea how long this fic is going to be because... so many of the things I have planned haven't even been touched on yet! I also feel like I should mention this now before there's speculation, but this is Not a Byeler fanfic, it is unrequited (but will not cause tension between my boys). As my tag says: the canon ships for the kids apply to my fic. Thank you for reading and leaving your kudos! Please leave a review if you can, they are very encouraging, and help me see how everything is being absorbed!


	7. Chapter 7

Will’s new Tuesday routine, as of November 13th, is something he’s finally getting acclimated to. He leaves class twenty minutes before the final bell, and Jonathan drives him out to Indianapolis’ Walsen Clinic; a privately run business with a team of reputable psychotherapists.

Abigail Conwell is a certified government official with a degree in psychology, who specifies in PTSD and tackles projects of the utmost high security. Not that any of this matters to Will. What matters to Will is that she was recommended by Dr. Sam Owens, who’s currently on disability, and _also_ sees his therapist on Tuesday afternoons.

Who do you go to when your therapist needs therapy, you ask? The therapist of your therapist is your friend. And in this case: your new therapist.

Today, Jonathan has a last minute quiz before the break in his final class, and Will is antsy the whole drive up the Interstate. He knows being a good ten or fifteen minutes late to his appointment probably won’t be a big deal, but it doesn’t mean he has to like it.

He _wants_ to talk about his problems.

Will isn’t exactly jumping to complain about the nightmares he has or the way he can see long tentacle-like arms in the sky, reaching for him when it storms—but he actively _does_ want to talk about the other things. The things no one asks him about at home. The things no one worries about but Will.

Jonathan talks to him on the drive up—mostly about Christmas plans and how he had to turn down Nancy’s invitation to spend Christmas with her.

 _“It would make it official,”_ she’d said.

They finally came to the agreement, that no, it would be _weird_ , especially so soon after they got together. And of course there was the matter that Jonathan just didn’t _want_ to spend Christmas at the Wheeler’s.

He actually likes his family.

“Nancy could spend Christmas with us,” Will says, looking up from where he’s color testing two markers over each other on a page towards the back of his sketchbook. It’s a little difficult to draw in the car, but he can test out some methods or do crude sketches even on the road.

Jonathan glances quickly at him, smile playing on his lips. “Really?” he asks. “You wouldn’t mind that?”

“I mean…” Will shrugs. “Maybe check with mom, first. But… I like Nancy.” He stops, then looks out the window for a second. “Maybe Mike can come, too.”

“Yeah,” Jonathan agrees. “I’ll ask.”

The clinic is always a comfortable quiet. There’s soft shuffling of people flipping through newspapers, or sitting down, and sometimes the news is on the television on the table, but the volume is never higher than a murmur. Will doesn’t look at the faces of people in the waiting room. There’s a silent understanding that everyone is here because they need someone to talk to, and to get into that vulnerable headspace takes inner reflection.

Jonathan reads a book, hunched over with his elbows on his knees, and Will spends his time in the quiet space with his box of markers.

The door by the sign-in desk opens. “William Hargrove,” a man says, clipboard in hand.

Will looks up at the sound of his name before… it’s not his name. He isn’t sure why the last name sounds familiar until he sees a teenager with curly, shoulder-length blond hair get out of his seat from across the room and follow into the hallway.

What is Max’s step-brother doing all the way out here?

It suddenly makes sense why she was getting rides from Steve, even if Will never thought much of it and just assumed Billy was mad at her or something.

The guy obviously had problems. It’s good he was trying to get help for it.

Will side-eyes Jonathan to see if he noticed, but he seems engrossed in his book, so Will returns to drawing until his own name actually _is_ called. He leaves his belongings in his chair, next to his brother, and gets a supportive smile from him before disappearing into the back.

“Hey, Will,” Dr. Conwell greets him as he sits down and gets comfortable. “Take your time,” she says.

Will doesn’t need much time. The question has been on his mind since Friday, and he’s been eager to ask her opinion. “Do you think I should tell my mom?”

“About…?”

She has a feeling she knows the answer, but she wants to give Will the chance to say it himself. She watches him fiddle with his fingernails, picking at the skin around the nail beds anxiously, and refusing to look at her. He opens his mouth a few times, but it becomes evident he’s not ready to repeat it out loud.

“About your feelings for Mike?” Dr. Conwell finally says. Will nods. “Do you think that’s what’s right for you?”

The fiddling continues, but he does look at her briefly. “I don’t know,” he says softly, pushing off his shoes so he can sit cross-legged on the comfortable, roomy chair. “I think I want someone to know… I’m just tired of feeling so alone all the time, and making people think I feel different because of the Shadow Monster, when I—Well, I mean, there’s that too. There’s a lot of things that make me feel different.”

With a nod, Conwell gives him another second to continue before responding only when he does not. “Mike is always the first person you go to when you need to talk about something. And now that you think you can’t be honest with him about how you’re feeling, are you trying to look for the second best thing?”

“I guess. I just… I know that if I tell my mom, she won’t tell anyone. But that doesn’t mean she won’t treat me differently.”

“How would she treat you?”

“Like—like, she’ll draw attention to it. She’ll make everything sound like she’s trying to understand me. It’s just the _way_ she says stuff.”

“Like she’s _trying_ to understand you?”

Will drops his hands to his lap. “What do you mean?”

“You said she’ll make it sound like she’s _trying_ to understand you. You always talk about your mother like you don’t think she understands what you’re going through.”

“Well… she doesn’t. She didn’t get stuck in the Upside Down. She didn’t get possessed by some monster who _killed_ people. She’s not different. She’s not a—a freak.”

“Maybe that’s the answer to your question,” Conwell says. “If you don’t like the way she responds to the things you tell her, maybe you shouldn’t tell her.”

“But I _want_ to tell her.”

The chair squeaks quietly under him as he leans forward with that sentiment. He sounds certain.

“Then maybe _that’s_ the answer to your question.”

After weeks studying Will’s case and having him lay the foundation of where his anxieties lie, Conwell has found he’s more responsive to being challenged than to sympathy. She will have sessions where she says very little and allows him to complain about whatever is on his mind, but when he is so unsure of himself, she finds it much easier to give him an answer and let him decide if it is the right one on his own.

He is one of the most genuinely kind-hearted kids she’s encountered, and so discovering the way he always seems to want to stand his ground came as a surprise.

Will spends the rest of the hour talking about how he wants to make Christmas really special for El, but he can’t mention El, so he uses Hopper as a placement word. If Nancy and Mike agree to come over Christmas day, maybe Hopper can too.

She reminds him that other people have families and their parents may not react warmly to their kids not being home on Christmas. Not that he should shut down his plan, but rather to be mindful, to make sure everyone is on board, and that there are no hard feelings.

When they finish up, Dr. Conwell thanks him for sharing and tells him she’ll see him next week—to bring his official Christmas plans.

Will remembers Billy when he’s back in the hallway, but he doesn’t see him on the way out nor in the parking lot. In no way does the information consume Will, but it does make him feel more grounded, knowing someone at least a little closer to his age is going through hard times and needs to reach out.

Will spends the ride home finishing his homework for the night and considering what he wants to say to his mother. Maybe if he can get this off his chest, it’ll be easier to talk about the things that haunt him. He just hates feeling trapped.

“Mom?” Jonathan calls as they walk inside and he sets his backpack on the couch. She had a short shift today, mainly because she’d worked the last eight days in a row, so she got home around the time they would’ve arrived at the clinic.

“I’m on the phone,” she responds from the kitchen, phone crammed in the crook of her neck as the cord dangles from the hall.

Jonathan opens the fridge and Will sits at the kitchen table with Joyce, dropping his sketchbook in front of him. He’s in the middle of a project, so he shares a smile with her before pulling out his green and blue.

“That’s fine,” Joyce says into the receiver, swapping the phone to the other ear after a second. “I understand—I just wanted a ballpark for _when_. Because it’s starting to look like I’ll be working all the way up until Christmas, and I’m not—” Will glances up at her with a furrowed brow of sympathy, to which Joyce shakes her head in disappointed agreement. “I just need one day to hit the shops for some last minute things, and maybe to be able to, I don’t know… sleep in?” She takes a deep breath through her nostrils. “Okay… Yeah, that’s fine, Donald. You, too.”

Joyce pushes out of her seat with a screech against the kitchen floor and goes to hang up the phone before returning.

“He’s not giving you a day off, huh?” Jonathan asks, the whir of the microwave starting as he crosses his arms.

“It’s not like I’m asking for much. Ah, it doesn’t matter.” She waves it off and sits back down, reaching across to touch Will’s arm. “How was your appointment, honey?”

Will nods. “Good. I was actually… wondering if I could talk to you.”

“Of course,” she says firmly. “Oh— Mike called about thirty minutes ago. He asked if you could come over when you got home.”

Will looks up at that, hand stilling on the paper. “What did he say?”

“I think all your friends are going over to his house for something. You should go.” She smiles. “If you want to talk now, you can, or we can save it for later and you can have some fun. I won’t forget.”

With a grin, Will closes the book and leaves it on the kitchen table. “Thanks, mom,” he says, gives her a brief hug, then makes his way to the door.

When the front door closes, Jonathan looks to Joyce with an ounce of surprise. “You’re letting him go alone?” he asks.

Joyce sighs, then nods decisively. “I thought it was a good opportunity. I have to let him have some independence again eventually.”

“Did Hopper say that?”

With an appalled laugh, she says, “ _No_. Maybe.” They exchange soft looks, Jonathan’s a little more smug, and she adds: “I’m going to call Karen in ten minutes to make sure he’s there.”

“Independence,” Jonathan agrees sarcastically. The microwave beeps.

\--

Will rings the doorbell. When there’s no answer right away, he opens the front door, and Mike’s mom stops by the stairs, hands out. “I was _coming_ ,” she says, but it’s soft, and she sits in her hip. “They’re out back. You tell Mike to lock that darned front door when he closes it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Will replies. He flips the lock from the inside, then goes back outside and picks up his bike to walk it around the yard. The bushes rustle a little when he walks too close to them, and everyone looks up from what they’re doing.

“Hey, Will,” Mike and Lucas say.

There’s several boxes sitting in the grass due to the flood, and the table that’s normally in the basement is where they’re sitting, right by the door. Its legs are a little water logged, thicker towards the bottom, but it’s impossible to tell how wobbly it is when it’s on the yard. Dustin sits up from where he’s laying on his back, tossing a ball in the air repeatedly.

“Will,” he says, “We have _problems_ , man.”

Max is hunched over a book on the table, and Lucas is leaning over her. “Write this name down,” she says.

“What’s going on?”

Will sets his bike next to Dustin’s, trying to get a glimpse at what Lucas is writing.

“So, you know how yesterday Max was with Steve and he was being really weird about something with Hopper, right?”

“Yeah…” He can see now that they’re looking at a yearbook, and Max is slowly skimming the faces with a finger.

“Well, yesterday, when she got home, there was this girl outside her house, just standing there across the street. Which is obviously really weird, but she didn’t think much about it at first.”

“Which was kind of stupid,” Mike adds.

Max keeps her spot with her finger and glares up at him.

Dustin ignores them. “But today, that girl was there again. And she was standing outside, looking really creepy and not doing anything… No one else around…”

She finally pitches in. “I couldn’t see her from my bedroom, so I opened the blinds in the living room just a little bit to keep an eye on her. She was there for hours… Like, literally no one else showed up.”

“Was it one of the people Steve and Hopper were trying to catch?”

“No,” Max says. “That girl was blond… This girl has, like… kinda long, light brown hair… It was just parted down the middle, really plain, and she was wearing really ugly clothes. It was _so_ creepy.”

“We’re looking to see if we can find her in Nancy’s yearbook,” Mike explains.

Will leans against the table next to where Mike is sitting, trying to look at the faces, but they’re nearly upside down at this angle and he doesn’t know what he’s looking for. The sound of Dustin throwing his ball resumes.

“Have you guys asked Steve about this?”

“We _would_ ,” Lucas says, “If Steve didn’t think he was a cop now.”

Dustin chimes in from the ground. “I resent that, Lucas.”

“And I resent you. Glad we got that cleared up.”

“Guys…” Mike shakes his head.

“He’s just kidding,” Dustin says. He throws the ball at Lucas and it hits him in the shoulder. “He _loves_ me, isn’t that right?”

Lucas shoots him a glare, grabbing his arm where the ball hit. It thuds softly at his feet, unable to bounce in the grass. “I love when you’re not totally _annoying_.” He kicks the ball to the side so it rolls a good ten feet away.

“ _Guys_ ,” Mike presses. “Stop. We can tell Steve if we find out who it is.”

The sound of the book closing is a loud _clap_ , and Max looks around at all of them. “That’s not going to happen. Because she’s not in here. I went back over the names we wrote down, and I don’t see that person, so…”

“What? Are you sure?” Mike asks.

“Yeah.”

Will reaches out and takes the yearbook slowly from her, looking down at the official font that says ‘Hawkins High School.’ He touches it lightly with his middle finger, tracing the raised lettering.

He remembers the agents from the lab always trying to blend in, and for a second he's paranoid they're here for him again, but he forces himself to think logically.

“Well... maybe she’s not a high schooler.”


	8. Chapter 8

“I check this office every _week_ for bugs,” Hopper tells Steve as he leads him through the door in the back of the police station. Steve was a little late after driving Billy to get his car, but Hopper doesn’t seem to mind. The chief unclips his radio and the flashlight on his duty belt, setting them on the table. They’re the heaviest items he carries around on him at all times apart from his gun.

The last time Steve was in this room was when he was being interrogated on the grounds of his concussion, so he feels a little wary, but he reminds himself that Hopper is on his side.

“Do you ever find anything?” Steve asks.

“No. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be careful. Those government assholes might’ve been run out of Hawkins by that nutcase Murray, but I have reason to believe they’re only gone _publicly_.”

Even though Steve has tried with everything in him to dismiss the idea that their town is done with the chaos from Hawkins Lab, it doesn’t exactly come as a shocker to him. He just doesn’t understand what Hopper needs from him.

“Why are you telling _me_ this?”

“Because you’re trustworthy. Look. There are exactly four people I trust, without a doubt, to do what’s right by this town and its inhabitants. You know who that is? That’s Joyce Byers,” and Steve nods like that’s the most obvious answer, “Nancy Wheeler, her brother, and El.”

Steve counts that off on his fingers slowly, brow furrowed. “So… you _don’t_ trust me?”

“What? No: I just called you trustworthy. What I’m saying is—that they function as the heart of this town, and I think you, Steve… You could, too. I don’t need to be bothering any of them with these issues when I’m not even sure what the issues _are_ , yet. I still wanna let them live their lives… hopefully as stress-free as possible.

“But you’re onto something, or at least, you think you are, and there’s no point being like two ships in the night when I think we can help each other.”

It feels like duty is being thrust upon him. Steve finds himself usually looking the other way when it comes to responsibility—he doesn’t want things put on his shoulders, mainly for the fear of not being good enough, or not being able to follow through.

But he thinks this, he can do.

“I’m all ears.”

\--

“What’s so bad about being a cop anyway?” Dustin asks as they bike down the street. He glances Lucas’ way. They have to cruise mostly to keep up with Max’s speed uphill, and Lucas is keeping close to her.

“I didn’t say anything was wrong with it.”

“You said you didn’t want to tell Steve because he thinks he’s a cop.”

Mike glances at them, expression relatively neutral even though he’s monitoring how much their argument might escalate.

“Yeah,” Lucas says. “He _thinks_ he’s a cop. There’s a difference between _being_ a cop, and _thinking_ you’re a cop.”

“He sort of has a point,” Mike agrees. “Steve used to be a huge jerk. It’s not like he’s some saint, but now, he’s not going to tell us what’s going on just because… Because why?”

Dustin rests his foot gently on the brakes as they cruise down again. “I mean… He wouldn’t tell _Max_ what was going on. I haven’t had the chance to talk to him, yet.”

She scoffs. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re just not… You know…”

“ _No_. I don’t know.”

“You’re not his _favorite_ , okay? I didn’t want to have to say it out loud…”

“Excuse me?” Max stops where the road mostly evens out, skateboard rolling a few inches away and she drags it back with her foot. “What makes you think you’re Steve’s favorite?”

“Um, because it’s obvious?”

“No, it’s not. Why do you think _I’m_ not his favorite?”

Mike dramatically drops his head over the handlebars of his bike and turns it around, muttering, “Here we go,” to himself.

“I’m the only one here who’s an only child, okay?” Dustin says. “Why can’t you just give me this? It’s not like I have an older brother.”

“It’s not like I do, either!” Max says. She flips up her board and grabs it with both hands. “I’d _rather_ still be an only child.”

They all fall quiet at that, not even Mike knowing how to make their problems go away.

Will finally says, “I think Steve likes both of you a _lot_ ,” in a gentle tone, and Lucas reaches out to touch Max’s arm, but she drops her skateboard back to her feet and keeps going forward on the road.

“Max, I’m sorry—“ Dustin calls. She doesn’t respond at first as the others take initiative to continue on. “I’m sorry,” he repeats.

She only turns part way so she doesn’t lose her footing. “It’s whatever. Let’s just go.”

\--

Hopper licks his thumb and flips through a few pages in a mini notebook he has. It’s about five inches tall, and just shy of that horizontally, and it makes a little flicking noise as the flimsy paper scratches itself while turning.

Steve has his hands folded in his lap, eyebrow in a constant state of raised as he watches Hopper organize.

“So… what’s it like being a cop?” he asks.

Hopper gives him a quick glance over before continuing to sort through his notes. “I really oughta put a marker in here,” he mumbles. Then more clearly, he says, “It’s a lot of parking tickets and smacking kids on the wrist when they shoplift. Sometimes, I have to tell an old lady to quiet her dog because the neighbors complained. Real… serious stuff.”

Steve nods slowly, just for a lack of anything else to say.

“Here we are.” Hopper pulls open the drawer to his desk and puts a thin, plastic, highlighter-orange marker on the page he’s stopped at. “Right… So first of all, we’ve got the Shell station by the Interstate… Shop owner closing up one night, gives me a call. She says there’s a guy loitering outside in all black. She doesn’t have a description, really. Claims the guy has no face.” Hopper deadpans when he makes eye contact with Steve. “I’m sure you can guess those aren’t my favorite words, after current events.”

“Yeah… I can imagine.”

“Then,” he continues, “I go to check it out, just in case. I know what I’m looking for, so I don’t bring anyone with me. I don’t see any openings, or weird plants, or what have you. But what I _did_ find: some kind of transmitter. Looks like part of those monitors they had in the Upside Down, with some kind of satellite or something on it.

“I ask her if I can check out the inside of her store, but she starts getting antsy about what I’m doing before I can cover much ground. I’m still suspicious there might be bugs in there.”

“Do you really think there might be a way those monsters are still getting through?” Steve asks.

“I don’t know, kid. All I know is to rule nothing out.”

\--

Mike knocks adamantly on Steve’s door, holding his bike up with his free hand. Will and Dustin aren’t far behind, and Max stays further back in the driveway to skate in circles with Lucas leaning on his bike.

Steve tramps down the stairs, taking them relatively quickly, and when he opens the door, he tucks the pencil in his hand behind his ear.

“Uh, hey, guys…?” There’s nothing wrong with them being there, it’s more so that he thinks them _being_ there means something is _wrong_.

“We need you to tell us what you know,” Mike says, and he sounds like he’s not going to take ‘no’ as an answer.

“About what?”

“Cut the shit, Steve.” Dustin flips the stand on his bike. “Did you think Max wasn’t going to tell us what happened yesterday?”

“And now she’s getting stalked,” Lucas adds.

Steve definitely doesn’t like that sound of that. “What?” He moves so he’s not fully in the doorway, pushing open the front door a little more for easy entry. “Come on— Come in here.”

\--

“Part two,” Hopper says, sitting on the edge of his desk as he glances at his notes once more. He drops the hand holding his notebook to his thigh, resting it there. “We’ve got this weird girl in town no one seems to recognize. I have had _several_ calls about people worried about her. It’s not even really the concept that freaks me out—of course I want to find her for her sake, maybe help her out if she’s lost—but it’s the stories people tell me. They’re _all_ the same.”

Steve is so absorbed by the way Hopper is speaking, almost like he’s listening to a scary story over a camp fire. But this is really happening, here in Hawkins, and because of it, they’re never short of real life horror stories.

“What happened…?”

“Every one of them— Every _single_ one of them, told me this girl came to their door, and she looked so sad and helpless, that they let her in, fed her dinner, maybe let her stay the night on their couch… And when she was gone in the morning, they called me.

“I asked Mrs. Roslow: ‘Why didn’t you call me right away?’ I asked Manny Wilson. ‘Why?’ They don’t _know_.” He looks back down at his notes. “I didn’t put this one on the list until the second call, but it’s definitely staying there now. We’ve got six accounts of this.”

“Did they say what she looked like? Or, uh.” Steve crinkles his face, not wanting the answer. “No face?”

“Oh, no, I got a description,” Hopper says. Steve releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “She’s caucasian, about, uh, five-five, medium brown hair. Different people said different things for eye color, so I’m not sure on that.” He gestures a few inches below his shoulder. “Hair about that long.

“Don’t suppose that describes any of the people who you called me about?”

Shaking his head, Steve tries hard to recall if he saw someone like that in the crowd outside of Joe’s, but nothing comes to mind. “No.”

“Then…”

“What?”

“ _You know_. Your turn. Tell me everything.”

\--

Steve pulls on his jacket and slips on his shoes while the kids can be seen from the open door righting their bikes. “Well, I can’t take my car,” he says.

“Why not?” asks Mike.

“First of all, there’s too many of you. I mean, I guess, yeah, you could cram in the back seat, but…” He shakes his head. “More importantly—how’s it going to look if I’m just hanging outside Max’s house? That’s like the worst place for me, man.” Steve locks up the front and pockets his keys.

Dustin lowers his voice to put on the most mocking tone he can. “Oh, are you _scared_?”

“What? No.” As he moves past Dustin, he hits the bottom of the front of his cap, knocking it partway off his head. “I just don’t need to be drawing that kind of attention to myself.”

“You mean Billy?” Will asks.

“Oh, I doubt he’ll even bother us,” Max says. “He’ll be too busy working out or doing his hair.”

The boys laugh and Steve snorts in amusement as well.

“Ooh, look at me,” Lucas mocks, flexing with one arm as he pumps his pedals. “This is my best and only friend, because no one likes me.” He kisses his bicep. “I’m going to marry my muscles and we’ll be very happy together!”

Mike and Dustin and Max keep laughing for a while, until Lucas does too.

“We’re going to play AC/DC at our wedding,” Mike says. “No one will be able to hear the vows.”

“Vows aren’t important,” Dustin says through soft giggles. “I don’t have morals anyway, I’m just going to break them!”

Will frowns softly. “What’s wrong with AC/DC?” he asks.

“They’re just kind of obnoxious.” Mike drifts with one pedal pump so he doesn’t get too far ahead of Steve.

“I dunno… I kinda like them. They’re passionate.”

“Sure. I guess. They’re okay.”

Lucas looks over at them on his bike. “Oh, Mike,” he says. Mike glances at Will once more, smiling in reassurance before riding up to meet him. “You’ve got the flashlights, right?”

“Yeah,” Mike says, and Will watches as the two of them fall into an easy conversation, a frown pulling at his lips.

\--

Hopper gets off the desk when he’s done jotting down points related to what Steve’s told him. He drags a key off the top of his filing cabinet and jostles open the bottom drawer, pulling out a radio.

“Alright,” Hopper says, turning around and holding it up to focus Steve’s attention on it. “These are for emergencies only, or to radio in about a job, and that’s it. I’m gonna set this frequency so you’ll only be speaking with me.”

“Wait, what? You’re giving me a radio?”

“I need to know as soon as possible when you see something, especially if it’s dangerous, and especially if it’s about someone knowing something they shouldn’t know.” He hands it across the desk and Steve leans forward to take it in his hands, turning it over.

“Yeah, but…“

“But what?”

“I dunno, I’m just… me. Y’know, I’m nobody—just some stupid high school senior, and, I dunno, kind of an asshole.”

“I was an asshole at your age, too, kid.” Hopper nods a few times, looking Steve over. “Truth is, I still am. But that ain’t stopping me.”

\--

Lucas pulls the bag off his shoulder, properly stands up his bike, then reaches in for his binoculars. “Billy’s car is in the driveway,” he whispers, holding them up to his face with both hands.

Mike scoffs softly as he hands out flash lights. “I think we knew that.” They weren’t far from Max’s house now, their bikes in cover behind some bushes so they aren’t discovered.

“Let’s spread out,” Steve says. “Lucas, Max, do you two wanna stay with the stuff?”

“Sure,” Lucas says. “We’ll keep an eye on the street.” They have mostly a clear shot of the road in front of the house—where the girl had been spending her time.

“I’ll go with Will,” Mike says, and he grabs his walkie-talkie.

“If anyone sees something,” Steve starts, addressing all of them with a finger, “you let the rest of us know right away, yeah?”

Steve and Dustin take up the right side around the house, heading along the road by the trees, and Mike and Will head deeper into the forest—not where it’s dense, but where someone might walk between neighborhoods to get to this part of the town. There are a few street lamps, placed in a zigzag formation that they follow close by.

Will pulls his brown beanie a little lower over his ears after the wind picks up, cold air assaulting them until it changes directions and is more dispersed by the flora. The wind whistles through the trees, and the noise is ominous, but he knows he’s safe, he’s grounded, he’s with Mike.

Mike steps over a thick root that angles out of the ground and Will follows suit.

“I wasn’t trying to argue with you earlier,” Will says, sounding apologetic.

Mike glances at him once. “What do you mean?”

“About AC/DC.”

The idea that Will thought he was being rude—or God forbid, mean somehow—is unbelievable to Mike. They don’t argue. And when they disagree, it’s easy to resolve, and always has been for them.

“I didn’t think you were arguing,” Mike says. “I know you like that stuff. And it’s okay to have different music tastes than me. Just because I’m making fun of Billy doesn’t mean I’m making fun of _you_.”

“I know… I wasn’t worried about you making fun of me. I just… don’t know how I feel about everyone making fun of _him_.”

Mike slows down, lips parted as he fixes Will with a hard stare. He pushes forward again, tucks his walkie-talkie under his arm, and picks up a long stick off the ground, breaking off one of the branches. “He’s a bully. A bully—just like Troy, and there’s nothing good about people like that. They deserve what’s coming to them.”

“I just—I mean—I guess I don’t get what the point of making fun of him is. You don’t have to like him, but you shouldn’t do it back.”

“Why not? All he does is yell and act like he’s better than everyone. You know what he did to Lucas. And Steve. And Max, for that matter!”

“I just think we should be better than _him_. How are we any different if we’re bullies, too?”

Mike breaks off another branch, the snap louder this time. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see what he did.”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get it. I’m ‘zombie boy,’ remember? Terrance poured milk all over my sketchbook. James cornered me in the bathroom and wouldn’t let me leave. He made me late for that History test.”

“So, you’re defending that?”

“No! I’m saying, if I went and poured milk on Terrance Nemby, then I would be just as terrible as him!”

“You _should_ pour milk on him,” Mike says darkly, like the conversation is giving him ideas.

Will sighs. “Besides, it’s different. It’s not like they’re trying to be better. But if they did, I’d let them.”

“Billy’s not _trying_ to be better,” he mutters, stabbing through a large leaf on the ground with a crunch.

“Maybe he is. You don’t know.”

“Yeah, well, neither do you.”

It takes everything inside Will not to prove him wrong, but he’s so unsure now if he should mention the clinic at all. Mike is partially right. Will _doesn’t_ know. He can only hope.

“I’m sorry,” he concedes. Will brings the hand without a flashlight to his mouth to warm it, breath heating his palm up from the inside.

“You just want to see the best in people,” Mike says. “But some people don’t want to be good. They just want to live off of other people’s suffering. You want everyone to be happy, right?” He glances at Will and spins the leaf on the stick absently. “That’s what makes _you_ a good person, and him not.”

Will stops walking, pointing the light towards the woods where the path is less travelled, undergrowth thick and patchier. Mike stops too, after a few more steps. He follows Will’s line of sight into the trees, then looks back to him.

“What is it?”

Shaking his head, Will finally makes eye contact. “It’s nothing. I thought I saw something.”

Mike glances right again, but there’s nothing he can see in any of the clearings. “What was it? Like a person?”

“No… Like… an animal,” Will says. “It was probably just a dog.”

There’s a noise of static from the radio and Mike grabs his walkie-talkie from under his arm.

“You guys should come back,” Steve says. “I wasn’t really thinking, and y’know—I don’t like the idea of you twerps out in the dark this long. We can keep looking tomorrow.”

Through the radio, Dustin says, “You’re supposed to say—” and it cuts out.

After a second, Steve adds, “Over.”

Mike looks to Will, who still seems distracted, but they turn around together. “We’re on our way. Over.”

As they hadn’t strayed more than five minutes from the Hargrove residence, the trek back is short and uneventful. There’s a feeling in Will’s chest that he tries with everything he is to curb, even when logic tells him to never ignore his instinct.

In the forest, on that trail, the light from the lamps in their zigzag formation grow brighter and brighter, one by one, until a good portion in the middle go out, enshrouded by darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I haven't responded to last chapter's comments, I've been kind of MIA these past few days, but I'll get to all of them and I greatly appreciate them!! Thank you for your patience and your interaction and general interest in the story. Look for more Billy next chap. <3


	9. Chapter 9

Since winter break kicks off on Friday, the students are already anxious to be let out for the week. It’s not uncommon for some high schoolers to skip Friday, or even Thursday, but they make those plans with their friends now. This makes the hallways seem even more rambunctious than they normally do before the first bell rings.

What adds to this even more, is that the student council is selling squares of fudge for Christmas to be given out like roses on Valentine’s Day. They’ll be passed out tomorrow, as encouragement to keep kids in school. Jonathan stands a few feet from the line, anxious. Does he buy some for Nancy and risk being a chain in the ladder of mediocrity in her life? It would be a nice gesture, but it’s what would be _expected_ of him, as her boyfriend.

The fact of the matter is, it’s just not very _them_. It’s not very him. But if he doesn’t do it and everyone else gets fudge delivered to their classes with little notes, does that make him a jerk?

He hates how vapid the public makes holidays out to be. Everything is just about expectation and not about genuinely caring about people.

Everyone in that line just wants to make a show to the right people; because if they don’t, it’ll be more noticed than if they do.

It’s all a game and he hates it.

Jonathan shoves his hands in his jacket pockets, and decides he’s against it, at least for now. He gives one last peer over the table as he walks away, mainly out of curiosity and indecision. Maybe he’ll buy one for himself just to make a point to the student council, or as some one-off jest.

As he contemplates his options, he pays little mind to where exactly he’s going, and he happens to barrel headlong into a form that barely moves from his spot. Billy peers over him with a note in his hand, and a sharpie in the other, gesturing out with both.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asks, as if he hadn’t been doing the exact same thing: not paying attention.

Jonathan freezes up, but after a moment, he adjusts his bag higher up on his shoulder and refuses to make eye contact.

“I’m _talking_ to you, Byers. You ever watch where you’re going, or you just think the world revolves around you?”

“It was an accident,” Jonathan mutters.

“What was that? I didn’t hear you.”

He’s not going to play these games. Jonathan tries to move past him, but Billy side steps and takes a stride back to block him. But the second time he tries to walk to class he’s stopped again.

Jonathan finally looks him in the face, even as he keeps his head down. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“You’re the one who doesn’t want to have a civil conversation or apologize,” Billy says.

The tension builds as the two of them stare at each other, Billy setting his jaw and refusing to back down until a third voice pipes up.

“What’s going on here?” Nancy Wheeler asks, stance defensive with her arms around her books, but otherwise ready to make a scene if need be. She doesn’t get in between them, but she angles herself like a protector anyway.

“Oh, good,” Billy says. “You’re just in time to catch your little boy toy about to run away with his tail between his legs.”

She ignores him, touching Jonathan’s arm lightly. “Is he bothering you?” she asks pointedly.

“It’s not a big deal. Let’s just go to class.”

Billy sizes her up, smiling pleasantly. “Y’know, it really is a mystery. Why you left Harrington for this airhead.”

Nancy pauses. Turns her head slowly. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“I just wanted to know.” He puts up both hands, mockingly defensive, paper still in one and pen in the other. “What could’ve possibly been going through your head?”

“ _Why,_ exactly, is that any of your business?”

“Just lay off,” Jonathan says.

“It’s actually kind of funny,” Nancy adds, “ _how_ much you must want my attention.” She reaches out to take Jonathan’s hand, turning her back on Billy. “Come on. We’re leaving.”

Billy scoffs quietly. “Guess you’re just as much of a coward as him, huh?” He lowers his voice in challenge. “Or is it that creepy serial killer vibe he has going that really turns you on?”

Nancy whirls around with bright eyes and drops her books. She looks like she’s about to punch him square in the jaw before Jonathan grabs her wrist and has to pull her back.

“Nancy!” he shouts, trying to bring her to her senses.

Tensely, Nancy says, “You— _asshole!_ ” but Billy just folds up the paper in his hand calmly and clips the pen onto it, opening his mouth like he’s going to say something else.

The hallway is quieter. The people in the line to buy fudge are certainly watching, and a few others have their gossip circles going as well, keeping an eye on the three of them like they’re ready for something to happen. There’s never enough drama to go around in this town.

The moment Steve locks onto the scene, he puts momentum in his step, being gentle but forceful as he pushes a freshman out of the way of his path. Unlike Nancy had, he actually _does_ put himself between the two of them, using his hands to wedge himself in the middle of the conflict.

“Whoa— _Whoa—_ “ he starts, looking at both of them. “What the hell is going on—?“ The bell rings. Jonathan looks anxious, but Nancy and Billy both stand their ground, the former looking braced to let loose on Billy. She barely acknowledges Steve from where she’s staring him down.

“Get out of my face,” she spits, refusing to tear away from Billy’s harrowing gaze.

“Nancy, come on,” Jonathan says. He uses Steve’s intervention to crouch down and pick up Nancy’s things for her.

With one hand out as a sign for Nancy to stay back, Steve uses the other to press to Billy’s chest. There’s a genuine fear in the back of his mind that if a fight broke out, Nancy would get hurt, and it makes him confident enough to turn more fully towards Billy, placing his other hand on his arm to physically guide him away.

Billy stays hardily in his stance for a few more seconds until Steve is really putting effort into it, and he takes two steps back, finally ending their glaring contest.

Jonathan hands the books to Nancy. “We’re going to be late for class,” he mutters.

“Right,” she says, smiling cautiously with a nod. “Yeah, totally. Let’s go.” Even though she doesn’t know what to say to him, Nancy lightly touches Steve’s arm as well before marching past.

He watches after her, and doesn’t even realize Billy’s taken off down the hall until he’s tearing open the door to the front of the school, then throwing his hands up behind his head with his fingers interlocked.

“Billy!” Steve calls out, shaking his head but otherwise following him. “Wait up, man!”

Billy is stopped right outside, and predictably, he’s already lighting a cigarette. He watches Steve lowly, looking antsy as he rocks on his heels and shuffles in place. “I can’t stand looking at that guy’s ugly mug,” Billy says, cupping his hand for the lighter.

“Jonathan…?” Steve guesses. He glances into the window once to make sure no teachers are catching them out front, but it’s not like this is the best position to hide from authority figures anyway. “He’s not _that_ terrible.”

“What; you don’t just—hate his fucking guts?”

When Steve moves against the brick wall to stay out of line of sight, Billy takes a hint and wanders closer to the bike rack with him.

“Not particularly,” Steve says. “It’s hard for me to really _hate_ anyone. Sure, there’s people I’d rather not be around, but…?”

“Like me?” Exhaling a breath of a laugh, Billy’s smoke ascends between them.

“Your words,” Steve says. “Not mine.” He raises a brow as Billy just stares at him, then looks away, glancing in the direction of the front doors. “You wanna tell me what happened?”

“I wasn’t trying to start a fight with the princess, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Man, don’t—don’t call her that.”

Billy scoffs and turns so he isn’t facing Steve head-on anymore. “Puzzles me that you wouldn’t hate that guy for what he did. Taking her from you… right under your nose.”

Clenching his teeth for a beat, Steve stares down hard at the ground. He can’t tell if Billy is trying to antagonize him or not, but he’s not going to take the bait. “He didn’t _take_ her from me,” Steve says. “She’s a grown woman. She makes her own decisions. And hell—I wasn’t—exactly—” Steve’s not at a loss for words. He just doesn’t think he needs to explain this to anyone, especially not Hargrove.

Billy shrugs with both shoulders, stiffly. “If you don’t want my help, that’s fine.”

Steve can’t believe what he’s hearing. He crosses his arms, propping one leg up on the wall behind him. “Your _help_?” he asks. “With—with what? With Nancy?”

“Oh… fuck off, Harrington,” Billy mutters, flicking ash in an arc so most of it goes far enough to hit the cement of the parking lot. “It’s just a little joke.”

The way he was clearly trying to backtrack makes so little sense that Steve falls quiet at first, trying to process if he missed something. The emotion in his voice isn’t quite embarrassment, but Billy seems uneasy, and Steve’s suddenly very aware of the complexity of this back and forth they have going.

He gets it—Billy has trouble with power dynamics and the need to feel like he’s in control. Tommy and Carol were the same way. He doesn’t know if he wants to keep reminding himself of them, or comparing him to them, but every time he does, he can’t help but think maybe he’s in over his head.

Does he throw Billy a bone and see what happens? Or just back off and let it die?

He can’t fix everyone’s problems. Hell, he can’t even fix his own. And Billy falls under both categories.

“Do you ever get the feeling… you’re being watched?” Billy asks, breaking the silence. Steve looks up at him, and Billy’s back is to him, looking out over the parking lot and maybe further, to the street.

It’s one of those things that makes Steve’s skin crawl. When he’s around a lot of people, especially at school, it’s so easy to get distracted from the reality that life isn’t as simple as people want to believe.

The aforementioned feeling of being watched comes over him almost instantaneously, and despite this, he feels the need to have it clarified.

“What do you mean…?” He tries to think like Hopper—tries to have his eyes everywhere at once.

“It’s just a sense I’ve been getting, off and on, the past couple of days. I don’t know. It’s probably nothing.”

“No, I—I get it,” Steve says. “I wouldn’t go ignoring your instincts just yet.”

Billy faces him again, crossing his free arm across his chest. He flicks his gaze over Steve thoughtfully.

“You know something I don’t?”

The sound of laughter jolts Steve from the conversation, and the two of them watch the side of the building from where the sound originated until a yellow lab rounds the corner. He looks their way, tongue out, then turns his head, waiting.

“Where you going, buddy?” A familiar female voice asks, and Steve perks up even more the moment he sees wild blonde hair.

He opens his mouth with his eyes trained on party girl, takes half a step forward, pats Billy on the shoulder, and says, “Hold that thought,” quietly.

“You got an owner?” she coos.

“Hey,” Steve whispers to her, glancing once over his shoulder to make sure Billy isn’t following and accidentally makes eye contact with him.

The blonde girl tilts up her head. She’s squatted on the ground, having grabbed the dog’s collar. “Is this your dog?” she asks.

“Uh, no.”

She smiles like the sun, then turns the collar to look at the heart-shaped tag. “Jude,” she says, reading the name. “Hey, Jude.” She giggles. “I love that song.”

“Yeah.” Steve glances back at Billy again—he’s watching, but he hasn’t moved from his spot, casually finishing off his cigarette. “Can I talk to you?”

Party girl lets go of the tag, standing as she looks over Steve again. “Oh, hey—I remember you,” she says, pointing at him with a passive hand. “Your hair is really memorable.”

He touches the tuft at the front as it’s mentioned. “Thanks.” Steve nods in the direction she’d come from, hoping to get away from Billy for this confrontation. Catching on easily enough, she sets her eyes on Billy, who smiles with charm back at her.

“Oh, you don’t want your bad boy friend to catch my attention?”

Steve makes a choked noise. “He’s not—“ But he isn’t entirely sure if he hates the phrase ‘bad boy’ or ‘friend’ more so he crosses his arms and moves closer to keep his voice as low as possible. “Mine.” He blinks, mouth gaping for a moment. “Look, just drop the act. Tell me who you _are_ , and we can make this easy.”

Her carefree expression drops slowly. She looks at Steve, then Billy, then Steve again.

Steve is ready to make himself even clearer, but before he can open his mouth, she takes a step back, and then _bolts_.

“Wh—Hey!” He shoots off after her without another thought.

If these actions don’t mean for certain that she’s up to something shady, there better be a damn good explanation. She runs like she’s running for her life, so Steve runs like he’s running for El’s, and Dustin’s, and Nancy’s. There’s no amount of self preservation that can outrun his desire to protect his friends.

Billy watches them go, moving onto the asphalt, but not far enough to watch the whole thing. The dog tilts his head at him, whining in the back of his throat.

“What?” Billy says. “Don’t look at _me_. I’m not gonna pet you.”

By the time Steve and the blonde are up on the grass past the sidewalk, morning dew making both their foot-holds sleek, Steve launches forward and grabs the girl’s arm, then quickly tucks his other arm under her side to make sure he can pin her.

“Who _are_ you?” he demands hoarsely. “How do you know about her? Why did you come?”

Party girl just swats at him and says, “Get off, get off—!”

“Answer my questions!”

“Whatever you think, you’re _wrong_.” She swats at him again, though. “Haven’t you ever heard the phrase ‘don’t shoot the messenger?’”

Steve relaxes his hold on her, rolling part way to the side. “Messenger—? For who?”

She squirms out from under him and he watches her get up, following suit, but reaches out to grab her arm again. It’s less forceful this time.

“It’s just a saying,” she says. “I’m like the messenger’s _messenger_ , and I don’t have a message for _you_ , so paws off.”

“…What…? I just want to know who you are— I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Say that to my grass stains!”

She shoves him hard, and Steve nearly falls, catching himself with his back leg and one hand, but she’s taking off again. He groans in frustration, but like magic, she’s just… gone. He spins completely around, looking for where she could have disappeared to—through the trees, or back the way they came, or to the football field.

On the side of the street, behind the sparse trees beside the school, Kali Prasad leans over from the driver’s seat of her crew’s van to open the passenger door. Dottie puts a hand on the door handle, then glances through the trees the way she came.

“He can’t see me?” she clarifies.

“No.”

Dottie wipes down her clothes in a frenzy, frowning deeply. “Ugh, I’m disgusting.”

“Get in,” Kali says. “What happened?”

She plops down in the passenger seat and the whole van shakes. “I _just_ got to the front of the school, looking for the agent, minding my own business, and this guy was _waiting_ for me there. I think he’s been watching me.”

The two of them have their eyes trained on Steve as he comes closer tentatively, rocks back on his heels, and paces.

“He knows about her, I think,” Dottie adds. “Or maybe Jane, I don’t know. Maybe he’s that copper she told you about.”

“I don’t think so.” Kali is pensive, leaning forward and resting her arms on the steering wheel. “But we have not found Jane or the agent yet.

“We have to make some kind of move before it’s too late.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The universe tried so hard not to let me post the past few days. I had huge writer's block, then my computer charger broke and I had to order a new one, and this weekend has been CRAZY busy. Like wtf?? But here you go. :) Happy Holidays, here's your Christmas Present from me.


	10. Chapter 10

Kali closes her eyes. Inhales. Exhales.

Some projections are easier than others, but over the years she’s learned how to challenge herself. She starts up the engine, making a three-point turn on the narrow road, then takes her foot off the gas to drift slow enough for Steve to follow along the path she creates for his mind.

“Let’s take him somewhere a little more… private,” Kali says.

Steve is just about to call it quits and head back to school. He sighs dejectedly, then checks his jacket pockets to make sure his wallet and keys didn’t fall out in the grass, but he’s good to go.

He needs to get to his car and radio the chief immediately; tell him to scope out the high school.

As if appearing from thin air, mist forms up from the nearly frozen moisture on the grass, reflecting in a soft blue hue. Steve huffs, squeezing his eyes tight. When he opens them, the image is even clearer. The color forms a trail into the trees, winding in the direction the blonde girl had been running before he could tackle her, and he _knows_ it’s going somewhere. The blue seems to grow even more vibrant, the color itself pulsing—brighter, dimmer, then brighter again—calling to him.

Steve takes a glance over his shoulder. He doesn’t see anyone out front from his vantage point. There’s a car driving the road by the parking lot though, so he waits for it to pass before he makes quick work of the trail, following along as it appears.

“You’re asking for something bad to happen to you, Steve,” he says to himself, shaking his head as he slowly jogs along the lit up mist. He braces himself on the trunk of a tree before crossing to the other side where there’s a thin road—one he knows leads away from the heart of the town. “You’re gonna die, and Saint Peter is gonna be laughing his ass off as he turns you away.”

He almost wishes Billy _had_ followed him, just so he wouldn’t be alone in this; but he knows, out of everything, his presence would be the most uneasy part.

Even so, at least with Hargrove, he has some inkling of what to expect. Even if the guy’s a complete wildcard, at the root of all things, he’s still human, and not some monster from another dimension.

A question begs an answer. What’s scarier: Knowing something’s unpredictable, or not knowing at all?

He follows up the road for a while, then across the street, and off the road onto a smaller dirt path, carved only by the usage of cars. Steve’s anxiety is off the charts. He shouldn’t be here alone. He shouldn’t be here at all—especially not without a weapon, or the radio, or anyone knowing where he went off to when he’s supposed to be in class.

The mist trail finally dissipates, and Steve curls his hands into tight fists, digging his foot into the ground with anticipation.

He jumps back the second that striped white van comes into view, stance wide. A poised young woman with dyed purple hair is perched atop it, crouched low and looking down at him. He takes another more hesitant step back.

“How are you doing this—?” Steve asks. “What the hell is going on??”

“This is the game we are going to play.” Kali rests her elbow on her knee, tilting her head. “A question for a question. Equal exchange.”

“Yeah…” Steve looks around for anything he can use as a makeshift weapon. “I’m not really a big fan of games.”

“I know you are afraid,” Kali says. “But you don’t need to be. I only want to talk. Do you know who I am?”

“No fucking idea… Hence why I keep asking you and all your friends.”

Steve has seen movies before. He knows no good-meaning, upstanding person says the words ‘I only want to talk,’ unless they have other plans.

“So, are you going to tell me? Because I think you can assume that’s my question. I did _just_ say I’ve been asking that.”

“My name is Kali,” she says. “And yours?”

His voice is uncertain. “Steve.” He squints into the window of the van, but sees nothing. “And I’ll take it you picked up a friend on the way over here?”

Kali smiles with pressed lips.

“You know, Steve… if you were the person I was afraid you might be, you would not have so many questions.”

“I thought the deal was a question for a question?”

“It still is.”

She lowers her stance to sit on the roof, then braces herself and jumps off, landing in a squat to lessen the impact. Steve forces himself not to take a step back, even as she approaches him.

Kali extends a hand in greeting. “It is good to meet you,” she says.

Despite himself—despite how outlandish this situation is—he glances at the palm of her hand to make sure she doesn’t have one of those stupid toy buzzers, like he’s ready to be part of some huge practical joke at any moment. Secondarily, he doesn’t see a weapon on her, and she’s also a good deal shorter than him, so he accepts the shake warily.

“You want to protect someone,” she says when they let each other’s hands go. “So do I. Which means, you and I, we are the same.” Kali waves him over to follow her, turning to go to the van. “Let me show you something.”

Steve doesn’t move.

“My parents taught me not to take candy from strangers. Especially not when they own creepy vans that show up on the news.”

She stops with her hand on the driver’s side door, clearly amused. “You saw that, did you? It’s unfortunate we haven’t replaced our transportation, yet. But I have someone on the job so things like this don’t become a problem.”

“Pretty ballsy trusting me with that intel.”

“Let’s just say I’m in the business of knowing who not to trust.”

“Yeah—I’ve never been very good at that myself.”

“You know not to enter strange vans,” Kali says. “I’d say that’s a step up from some.”

Steve nods and shrugs simultaneously, like he can’t really argue with that. He can practically feel his curiosity getting the best of him, but he _knows_ that’s how people get kidnapped. He takes a few steps slowly, and Kali opens the door, so he leans as far as he can to try to get a good shot inside as she opens the glove compartment.

The moment feels like it takes several excruciating minutes, even though it’s only a few seconds, and he’s aware of his heartbeat ringing in his ears, and the very real truth of how alone he is.

Steve stiffens at the sound of car wheels grinding over small rocks and dirt. Kali slams shut the glove compartment in alarm, lunging out of her seat.

“They’ve already seen us,” she says, grabbing Steve’s arm with one hand and pulling open the sliding door on the side of the van with the other. “We have to go.”

“Wha—Ahh!” Steve is yanked into the back of the van by another pair of arms, just as he’d feared in a worst-case scenario, and Kali jumps into the driver’s seat. He instantly goes into panic mode. “No, no, no— This is kidnapping, and I’m not—” He reaches out for the door, but the vehicle jolts forward and he falls backwards into a smaller frame.

Steve looks into the face of the blonde girl he’s now seen a fair amount of times, and he shakes his head. “Oh my god,” he says. “I _knew_ you were in here.”

“You’re welcome,” she replies, looking a little smug, but mostly gripping onto the seat and bracing herself. “The name’s Dottie, by the way. In case you’re still curious.”

“Yeah, that’s great— that’s just great. Good time for introductions! Can we—”

Again, he’s cut off, but this time by a loud thud, and then the sound of gunshots against the metal of the van. Steve makes a high pitched noise and crouches in front of one of the back seats, cowering to the sound of Dottie’s laughter.

“Are we being _shot_ at??” he demands, voice just as high as the alarmed shriek that escaped him. “ _Why_ are we being _shot_ at?!”

“Dottie!” Kali calls back to them. “Get on defense!”

Dottie scrambles to the back of the van, reaching under one of seats to pull out a black duffel bag. From it, she retrieves a sleek black handgun, and Steve watches in horror as she loads it, nearly falling over again from a sharp right turn.

“A gun! You have a _gun!_ ” Steve keeps low. He angles his head back to stay as physically far from her as possible, but she moves right past him in a flurry, making it to the front to sit with Kali. The window rolls down and the whistle of the wind whipping around them funnels in. Oddly, the gun shots aren’t much louder, and besides the wind and the exchange of bullets, the thing Steve can hear the clearest is the sound of the wheels as they protest shrilly with every turn.

But what stands out most of all is there’s no… sirens.

“Who _is_ that?!” Steve demands. He’s sure now they’re not going to hurt him, so he sits in the center, gripping the shoulder of the driver’s seat for a good vantage point. “Who the hell is chasing us?!”

“Be quiet if you want to make it out of this,” Kali says. Both of her hands are gripping the steering wheel stiffly.

Dottie pulls herself back in from the window, ducking as a stray bullet hits the side door. “I told you we should’ve brought Mick!”

Kali snaps back, “I can do it!” and she turns into the dirt between two trees at an upward angle. Steve’s eyes go wide as she off-roads, and for the second time that day, it feels like everything is in slow motion. The van barely makes it over the lip of the road above them. There’s not enough clearance to stop the ungodly scraping noise as the metal grinds against asphalt, clipping the front bumper enough that when the wheels leave the ground for a split second, the thin silver bumper tears off, skidding to the ground beside them, left behind.

Up ahead is a long stretch of open road with trees thick only on one side; the other only dotted with them. In the distance, he can see a gas station.

The Shell station by the interstate.

“Where are we _going?_ ” Steve feels hot with anticipation. He tries to gauge how fast they’re going and if he has the gumption to pull open the sliding door, only to _hope_ a tuck and roll wouldn’t leave him too wounded.

In the back of his mind, a persistent voice says, _I told you, I fucking told you so, I told you;_ as if he didn’t very well know he was getting himself in deep shit to begin with.

Kali slams hard on the breaks, spinning the wheel in full as they reach the Shell station. The low, uncertain noise that escapes Steve grows louder until they come to a full stop, and he closes his eyes, taking deep breaths. When he opens them again, Kali and Dottie are looking out the driver’s side of the dashboard window—the sliding stop had faced them at an angle towards the direction they just came from.

“We’re out in the open,” Dottie says. And it’s true: the area is much more open out here, just the light woods to their right and the gas station beside them.

“ _Trust me_.”

As Steve sees the two small black cars drive in close formation towards them, he thinks they might have been inconspicuous if they hadn’t just been following zealously, guns firing. They’re not racing down the road now—only driving just above the speed limit—and they slow casually into the small parking lot, making no effort to park in the spots.

The back door to one opens, and a girl who looks not much older than Steve climbs out. She has light brown hair, parted down the middle, and she’s wearing an oversized jacket over plain clothes. A yellow dog follows her out of the back seat, a silver tag dangling at his neck.

“ _Jude_ ,” Dottie says, scandalized.

Kali is preoccupied otherwise by the girl. “It’s her. The agent.”

As the two cars empty of passengers, Steve feels breathless watching them search the grounds. He feels like he inadvertently got caught up in a heist, but at the same time, he gets a deeper feeling that whoever the _agent_ is—whoever these _people_ are—they’re bad fucking news.

Worse than the people in this van.

Jude scampers right up to their location, sniffing about—trying to sniff them out—but he doesn’t get close enough to touch their vehicle before passing by the gas station bathroom instead, following two of the men as they go around the back.

“Why can’t they see—?” Steve starts to ask, but he’s shushed by both girls, and just as soon as he starts to ask it, he thinks he knows the answer anyway.

The cashier of the gas station comes out and approaches one of the men. It doesn’t seem to be a hostile conversation, but Steve still feels the hair on the back of his neck rise, and soon enough the passengers, as well as the teen girl and the dog, go back to their cars.

A collective breath comes out of the three of them as they watch the gunmen drive away, speeding up the on ramp.

“They didn’t shoot at us,” Dottie says. “They didn’t find us—That was just amazing!”

Kali leans forward and rests her forehead on Dottie’s shoulder. “I can feel an energy here,” she explains. “It’s like my powers are even stronger. I feel so… connected to them.”

Steve furrows his brow, trying to understand. He remembers how Hopper had come to stake out this place and found a device. Something to measure _something_.

“An energy…” Steve says. “Like a gateway? It’s a gateway, isn’t it?”

Kali pulls away from Dottie, careful with her words. “What do you mean?” she asks.

“To the Upside Down. Is there some kind of portal here? Like—like to another dimension?”

The girls share a look.

“I don’t know,” Kali admits. “But from what my sister has told me, I wouldn’t be surprised.” Steve isn’t even able to question that before she adds, “We need to ditch this ride. Find some new wheels.”

“Fun already has a car, doesn’t he?”

“We still have to get rid of this one.”

Steve sits back in his seat, taking a deep breath, still trying to cool off from the chase. His head is spinning; the answers to some of the questions he had only ripened new ones.

“I know a place,” he says. “If you promise to shed some light on a few things.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You are all wondering, "Where is he? Billiam Hargrove?" and I am here to feed you another dramatic chase scene instead. But no, this is a Harringrove fanfic, I promise, just let me set up a few more things first and he should be a lot more prevalent in the second half of this mess, coming soon. <3 Thank you for all your comments and kudos!!


	11. Chapter 11

“So, you’re like a magician,” Steve says, raising a brow over the stack of news paper articles Dottie handed him from inside the glove box. They highlight the misinformation spread to Hawkins about the lab and death of Barbara Holland. He feels guilty reading them, especially because he went out of his way _not_ to when the articles were released.

“Not quite,” Kali says.

Steve scratches the back of his head. “But nothing you create is real. It’s all an illusion.”

“Try to say that again when you’re facing your greatest fear,” Dottie says.

“Huh?”

“Your fear cortex.” Dottie probes her head under the front of her makeshift bandana headband, poking herself there three times. “She can see in there, and get whatever you don’t want to come out to… come out.”

“It is the amygdala,” Kali corrects. “And it is not that simple.”

Steve leans forward, setting the news paper clippings beside him on the seat. “Turn here. I—I know there’s a no trespassing sign, but I promise you, everyone ignores that. I don’t even know why it’s there.” He places one elbow on the driver’s seat and one on the passenger’s seat, hovering between them. “Go on—fear cortex.”

“Amygdala.”

“Amygdala,” Steve repeats.

“It contains more than just fear. It stores memories, emotions… It is also the part of your mind that is impaired when you have too much to drink. Ironically, it’s also the part that handles addiction.”

He can’t help but focus on the ‘memories’ aspect of that, and he clicks his tongue, putting up a hand. “Hold up. Whoa, uh—Can you… read thoughts?”

Kali laughs softly, but it isn’t to make fun of him. “No. Even if I could, it would be an unintelligible jumble of words… images… ideas…

“There are times when I can tap into memories, or even get a sense of what someone thinks about another person in the moment, but memories can be unreliable, as every bystander is unreliable. Two people with the same memory would have a vastly different story to tell.”

“You’re specialty is just fear,” Steve says, nodding. “I get it.”

As they turn with the dirt path, the sun shines off the various metals in the junkyard and hangs high in the sky. In the summer, the heat would be in waves around the lost cars and miscellaneous scrap. But now, the metal is cold, forgotten, and creaking in protest beneath the winter sky.

The abandoned bus is still an armored fortress for fending off creatures of the unknown, and the ground where he’d dropped a bucket of raw meat as bait is a washed out grey; clearly animals had claimed the majority, but the remaining rot left a sore on the earth that needs time to recover.

“Get the bag,” Kali says to Dottie.

“Hey, I got it,” Steve says. He climbs to the back where Dottie had retrieved the gun and lugs it over his shoulder as Dottie clears out the rest of the glove compartment and grabs the articles they showed Steve from the seat. When he climbs out, Dottie shovels her armful of belongings into the bag over Steve’s shoulder.

She pats the van almost fondly afterwards. “Goodbye ol’ faithful,” she says.

“You got any way to contact your friends?” Steve wonders.

“A signal,” Kali says.

“I was thinking something that could let them know you’re here. So they can pick you up.” Kali shakes her head, and with a solemn sigh, Steve looks to the train tracks that cut up the side of the junkyard. It’s not safe to drive that van around town anymore, especially not to wherever Kali’s friends are holed up. “Alright. We should start walking.”

—

Most of the time, Mr. Clarke’s classroom is a sanctuary. During lunch, the party makes plans, or sits around and jokes, or talks about D&D, and it’s accepted—encouraged even—for Mr. Clarke to eavesdrop and add to the conversation as he pleases. Of course, lunch is also the time he spends catching up on grading tests, or doing paperwork, and those times he stays preoccupied all period.

The days they know if they have something they can’t talk about in front of him, they go to the AV Club. It’s much more top secret, and they even have the capability of locking the door, but they don’t do it too often, because, well—they like Mr. Clarke.

“Can I have a bite of your sandwich?” Will asks Lucas as they settle in and wait for Max and Dustin to get food. Lucas hands it over without even a second thought.

“We can’t make Max go home alone,” Lucas says.

Mike gives a nod of agreement. “I know. Maybe when we’re done with the stakeout, she can stay over at one of our houses.”

“It can’t be mine.” Lucas’ face is grim with disappointment. “It’s not even just _Billy_ , but her stepdad is just as much of a, uh…”

“Asshole?”

“Piece of shit?”

Will and Mike look at each other and smile, sealing it with a high five for solidarity. Lucas can’t help but smile a little too.

“Yeah.”

“Well, she can probably stay with me,” Will says. “If her mom’s okay with it.”

They can hear Dustin’s voice before the door even opens.

“Yeah, but my mom doesn’t go in my room unless she asks me first,” he’s saying as he enters with Max. “It’s called _privacy?”_

Dustin sets down his array of lunch items—three cups of pudding, a banana, a turkey sandwich wrapped in cellophane, and two cartons of milk. He slides one of the pudding cups over to Lucas, then retrieves a spoon from under his arm.

Lucas makes a face. “Was this in your armpit?” he asks.

“No?”

Max scoffs softly, pulling out the chair next to Lucas and corrects him with a, “ _Yeah_ ,” to which Lucas shakes his head and drops the spoon on the table, deciding to just eat it with his fingers.

“Okay; you know what I was thinking,” Dustin starts, unwrapping his sandwich. “I couldn’t really say this in the cafeteria, but you know how Will saw like, a dog or something in the woods last night?”

“Is this going to be a conspiracy theory?” Mike asks.

“No, but if it was, do any of you really have the right to judge me?” They share varying looks of concession, and Mike’s face says, _go on_. “Weird girl being weird that none of us recognize? Dog in the woods where we’re looking for her? I know it sounds crazy, but I think we have a werewolf on our hands, gentlemen.”

“Oh, come on,” Lucas fusses. “You can’t be serious.”

“Okay—I could say _literally_ anything, and then say it’s ‘not the weirdest thing that’s happened in this town,’ and I’d be right.”

Max looks even more skeptical than Lucas does. “You can’t use a generalization as an argument. You need proof. If you left the room right now, and a dog came in here, I wouldn’t assume _you_ were that dog.”

“That’s because you’re close- _minded_ , Max. You had to literally see a demodog’s _face_ open up to accept it was real, even when you had _several_ eyewitnesses telling you you were wrong.”

“Sorry that I don’t automatically accept word of mouth as hard and fast _evidence_ like some kind of—“

Mike talks over them, standing. “Do you guys argue when we’re _not_ in the room, or do you just do it for show?” he says. “Look. Tonight we’re going to confront her—if she’s even _there_ —and if nothing comes from it, we tell Hopper. That’s that.”

—

“I can tell Chief Hopper about you—maybe set you up with a meeting point,” Steve says, glancing at Kali as he walks along the tracks.

“You can bring me to Jane yourself? Wouldn’t it be easier? No middle man?”

The name is still throwing Steve off a little, and he hikes the duffel bag up higher on his shoulder, feeling a little uncomfortable about his answer. “I… can’t really do that. I’m not her guardian. I’m not—I mean, I’m her friend, but—she’s just a kid.”

He can tell she’s struggling to answer. It makes him feel guilty, even though he knows it’s the right thing to say. “Hopper’s not like whatever police you’ve encountered before. He cares about people, about what’s right, before he cares about the law.”

“I’ve heard about him from Jane.” She looks up at Steve as he glances her way again, and the expression on her face almost makes him want to explain himself further. He bites the inside of his cheek and they walk in silence for a few moments. Dottie has been walking far up ahead of them, but she’s slowed down considerably to balance on the rail of the tracks, one foot after another.

“What are my, uh…” Steve clears his throat. “What are my fears? Do you know?”

Above all, he wants to change the subject, and frankly—he’s curious.

“If you believed me—that I could tap into a person’s mind—you would not be asking that question.”

“I believe you,” Steve says. “I’m just having trouble understanding how it works. I don’t think I have any fears that are… I dunno. Straight forward? Not everyone’s afraid of dentists, or the dark, or… or clowns. So, what happens when it’s something more abstract?”

“Nothing happens,” she says.

He licks his lips, trying to find the words. “What about that projecting thing, though? How do you project a fear that’s abstract?”

“I don’t. Creating an illusion for someone to see was only _one_ of the benefits my powers provided for the government officials who ran my life.” It’s matter of fact, like she keeps the bitterness to herself for clarity’s sake. “All I had to do was get the intel; then _they_ would find a way to exploit it.”

“I’m sorry you had to live with that. That sucks.”

“Yes, it does suck. And I’m sorry your town has been terrorized by them as well.”

It’s a little too real for Steve. He wants to make a joke, or do something that can lighten the mood, but before he can think of what to say, she’s already on the case.

“Your fears are why I trusted you so easily,” Kali says. “I could see Jane in your mind. I could see you were afraid of something happening to her.”

“Well, what d’you know? That’s, uh, specific.”

“I can tell you are a good person because of your mind, Steve.”

It’s an odd sentiment—that the things he’s afraid of could give someone the assumption that he’s a good person. He strives to be, but he knows it’s not true. He knows he’s selfish. He knows he has deep-seated jealousy that’s unwarranted because he grew up with a goddamn silver spoon in his mouth. He knows he’s spent most of his life blaming other people for his short-comings, and because of it he’s been drawn to people who are dumber than him, or crueler than him, or just… miserable. Because it makes him feel better about himself.

“Goodness is subjective,” Kali says after a long moment. She’s looking at Steve like she can hear his thoughts, and he opens his mouth and closes it a few times, a bit like a fish. “It isn’t about being virtuous or proving your morals are higher than anyone else’s. I would not even say it’s about being kind, or always trying to do the right thing. It’s just about trying to be the best version of yourself that you can be. And to keep improving.

“You become a good person the moment you refuse to be stagnant.

“You _are_ good.”

There is nothing Steve can say that can express how he feels about that. No one’s ever told him something that so directly counters his insecurities, and he’s never felt like anyone’s believed in him before Nancy. But then the kids needed him, and then Hopper trusted him, and now this stranger was telling him things he could never tell himself.

But he doesn’t have to _say_ anything.

They walk in silence that’s deferential and willing. Steve can see the sun in the sky, but he doesn’t have a watch, so he doesn’t know what time it is apart from the afternoon. They walk in quiet until Dottie turns around to face them, her jacket hanging off her shoulders so the bottom of the sleeves can cover her cold hands.

“You like poker?” she asks Steve.

“Not really my scene. Try strip pool.” He snorts in amusement. “Beer pong,” he adds.

“It’s for the best,” Kali says. “She’ll bleed you dry. I’ve seen it happen.”

Everything is lighter, then. He tells them about how Margaret C. puked on his pool table sophomore year, and he and Tommy spent hours cleaning it up because Steve was sure his dad would kill him. He clarifies that he and Tommy aren’t friends anymore—that he’s an asshole, just like his dad.

Dottie tells him she never knew _her_ dad. She says he went to jail when she was a baby and her mother killed herself when she was six years old. She talks about how she was in the system, and she lost count of how many foster families she had, and she says it all like it’s funny to her. It puts things into perspective for Steve, but Kali is good at redirecting the conversation again without shutting anyone down.

Kali’s also able to lead them in the right direction when they get out of the forest, and it’s only ten more minutes until they’re at a small building at the edge of an overgrown field. Likely the home of a farmer who’d left town and no one had picked up the property. It’s abandoned, and that means it’s the perfect spot for Kali’s gang to hang about in Hawkins.

There’s three of them in the building and Kali introduces Steve to them as a nice man who knows her sister.

Axel asks why he smells like money.

“I rolled around on a casino floor once,” Steve says.

It’s a good first impression for them. And for Steve, he feels instantly drawn to the rough and tumble way they act with each other. Axel and Mick’s coarse attitudes; the way Dottie is unbridled in everything she does. Even the way Funshine speaks with such urgency. It brings out the side of him that Steve was before these past few months, but without the parts that makes him hate himself.

Dottie begs to eat after the day they’ve had, and they ask Steve to eat with them before they take him to the station to talk with Hopper.

He feels wild with them, and even though it’s a blast—a real treat, even—he knows he doesn’t really belong.

He does figure, though, if he was going to skip school, he might as well make the best of it. Besides, he finds that despite their rocky introduction, he kind of likes party girl, Kali, and their friends.

—

When the bell rings after school, the party is eager to get started, making quick work of their lockers. Max and Mike don’t even wait for the others. When Mike sees that Max is shutting her locker first, he glances back at Will with Dustin and Lucas, and follows her to the front entrance of the school.  

“We got side-tracked during lunch,” Mike says, “but Will mentioned if you wanted to stay the night at his house, you could ask your mom about it. Just in case, you know—in case you don’t feel safe.”

He’s never explicitly apologized for how he treated her when she first started hanging out with them, but ever since he found out the truth about El, he’s tried to make up for it. In a way that doesn’t bring attention to the fact that he thinks he did anything wrong, of course.

“I’m fine,” she says. “I mean… thanks. But Billy will be home, and even if he makes plans or something, my mom has shorter hours this week—until Christmas.” She tries not to sound like she’s blowing his idea off. “I’ll check with her about tomorrow though? And if something’s changed, I’ll talk to her about maybe staying over tomorrow night.”

“Okay.” They cross the parking lot without another word. Max feels a little awkward, as she usually does when she’s alone with Mike, like she feels the need to say the right thing or impress him, because all of their other friends seem to hold him in such high regard.

She understands. She gets why they like Mike so much and it bothers her that she doesn’t feel good enough for him sometimes.

“You don’t… hate me, right?” she can’t help but ask.

There’s startled surprise. “What?? No.” And then the more genuine, “No—I don’t hate you.”

“Very believable,” Max responds, but she’s smiling and Mike shakes his head to himself, looking down as they stop by Steve’s BMW.

They wait as high schoolers get to their cars and pull out of the parking lot, and the rest of their party emerges onto the steps of the middle school. Dustin and Lucas look like they’re explaining something to Will, who’s nodding along faithfully.

“I mean it,” Mike says softly, but he doesn’t look at Max. “I don’t hate you.”

“Alright!” Lucas stops by the car, both hands on his backpack straps. “Are you guys ready for this?”

“Ready for what?” Max asks.

He wiggles his eyebrows twice in anticipation, then pulls his backpack to the front of him, unzips it, and reveals a gift-wrapped box with red wrapping that has little snowmen all over it. “Our first Christmas present, courtesy of Mr. Clarke.”

“He’s going out of town, so today’s his last day before the break,” Dustin rehashes. 

Max looks between them. “Well? Open it.”

“Wait,” Mike says. “We should open it on Sunday, during the game. That way El will be there, too.”

“You want us to wait _four_ days?” Lucas says in dismay. “That might as well be Christmas.”

He wants to argue his point, but he sees Nancy crossing over to them and holds his tongue. He makes a face as she wanders up to them with her arms wrapped around her books.

“Hey, guys,” she greets. “What’s up? Are you—waiting for Steve?”

Lucas and Will turn more to face her and Lucas looks down at the present with begrudging compliance before putting it back in his pack and zipping up.

Mike nods with a, “Yeah,” then skeptically adds, “Are _you_?”

Nancy looks around a little, like she thinks she’s going to spot him in the crowd. “Yeah, I was… hoping to talk to him today but I didn’t see him at school. He was here this morning.” She frowns.

“Obviously he’s here,” Mike says, gesturing to the car and even looking back at it for good measure. “Do you think he had something after school today?” 

Narrowing her eyes in thought, Nancy purses her lips at Mike, but Dustin interrupts to say, “He didn’t say anything about that to _me_ ,” like that means in no way could Steve conceivably have any other plans.

“Stop acting like you’re a Steve expert,” Lucas says. “You’re not his _mom_.”

“I know _way_ more about Steve than his mom does, Lucas.”

Sharing a look with Nancy, Mike shakes his head. He takes a small step forward, rubbing the back of his neck. “Hey, uh…” And he doesn’t know how to continue until Nancy looks attentive. “Can you… not mention this to mom?” he says. “And if Jonathan asks, don’t tell Mrs. Byers, either. Yeah, we—we lie about having AV Club after school sometimes, and… it’s, uh…”

“Mike!” Lucas says.

“ _What_? Would you rather I stay quiet and risk her saying something on accident?”

Nancy hesitates, looking from Mike to Will. But he didn’t ask her to lie to Jonathan…

“You’re not getting into anything dangerous, right?” she asks, pulling her gaze back to her brother.

Mike shakes his head. “I mean, there’s some stuff I can tell you about later. But generally, it’s just to give Will some time to just… relax. You know what I mean?”

Will looks down, not quite embarrassed, but feeling guilty for even wanting that, like he doesn’t have the right.

“Okay,” Nancy says with a sigh. “I won’t tell mom. I won’t even tell Jonathan unless he asks, but I think _you_ should tell him, Will. I think he’d understand.”

He actually smiles at that. It makes him perk up, so he offers a small nod, and it looks like he’s honestly considering it.

“Thanks, Nancy,” Mike says. Even the others smile to see Will supported.

“Well, well, well,” Billy’s voice rings clearly through their meaningful moment. He’s walking up, tossing a cigarette butt on the way. “Is this what I think it is?”

Nancy’s grip on her books tightens. She shifts in place to stand more solidly in front of Mike.

“Fuck off, Billy,” she says sharply.

Dustin covers his mouth with both hands, absolutely grinning at her reaction, and Max reaches out to take Lucas’ hand.

Billy scoffs, looking up and away before shooting Nancy an apathetic glance. “You’re not worth my time, Wheeler. In fact—you can consider this me doing you a _favor._ If you’re all waiting for Steve, you might be here a while.”

Nancy is on it with, “What the _hell_ is that supposed to mean?” while Max demands, “Did you do something to him??”

Billy’s expression goes from smug to taken aback and he looks over all of their faces for a moment.

“Holy _shit_ ,” he says. “It’s like all of you think I spend my time plotting school shootings like some fucking _insane_ person.”

“If you’re not going to help, you can leave,” Nancy tells him flatly.

The moment feels charged with energy as Nancy stares him down, but Billy doesn’t seem particularly interested in arguing with her, and the moment it looks like he’s about to do what she says, Will moves forward. He glances at Mike before speaking.

“Do you—Do you know where he is?”

It’s clear by the way Billy looks at him that he’s examining Will with the eyes of someone who constantly needs to feel like they have the upper hand. He doesn’t recognize Will; not exactly. He wasn’t there the night of the fight, and he can’t recall any time he’s seen this kid with the others. He licks his lips. He nods to Will with purpose.

“What’s your name, kid?”

Mike is absolutely horrified, every fibre of his being trying to ask, _what the hell are you doing?_ , but Will ignores it and focuses on Billy.

“Will,” he says. “Will Byers.”

His eyes search Billy’s face like he’s looking for something there. Some sign that the Billy he saw in Indianapolis is here, too.

Billy tests the waters by looking to Nancy, and she disapproves just as much as he hopes she would, light on her toes. But she doesn’t say anything yet. She doesn’t intervene.

“You’re a William, I take it?” When Will nods, Billy _smirks_. “That’s a good name,” he says. Will smiles a little at the compliment.

“I saw _King Steve_ skipping this morning. He was with some crazy looking blonde girl. You know—” and Billy shrugs one shoulder, “I don’t really think she’s his type, but who’m I to judge? It must’ve been an all day affair, too, because he wasn’t in class.”

“Did you know her?” Will asks.

“No. I never saw her before in my life. He did kinda make it sound like he was coming back, but I waited like ten minutes and decided, hey—fuck it. It’s not my problem.”

The kids are sharing looks behind Nancy’s back. _It has to be that girl that was watching Max’s house_ , their looks convey.

“He took off that way,” Billy adds, pointing to the right side of the school, in the direction of the field. “Maybe they went to _play_ some _football_.”

Dustin all but slams his face up against the driver’s side window to Steve’s car, cupping the glass to get a better look, even as his breath fogs it up.

“Thank you,” Will says softly with a smile.

With one hand digging in his pocket, Billy gives him a twitch of a smile back, then focuses on Max. “You coming home, or what?”

“No, I’ll just—I’ll find a ride. Or skate. Or something.”

He shrugs callously as he tosses the keys up in the air to catch them again, and wanders back to the Camaro to leave her there.

“Thanks, Billy!” she calls after him.

“Guys—” Dustin says, tension in his voice. “Hey, _guys_!” They all look away from Billy to give him their attention.

Dustin turns from the window, life and death looming over him in his expression.

“Hopper’s radio is still in his car.”


	12. Chapter 12

Nancy says Mike’s name a good handful of times while the kids speak amongst and over themselves. She doesn’t understand how they can hear what anyone’s saying with the way that they talk to each other.

“How do we know he’s not lying to us?”

“You don’t expect him to have the radio on him all the time—“

“That thing’s huge.”

“Billy’s not lying to us. He only lies to protect himself,” Max says. “He’d have no reason to—”

“Why was he even the last person who saw Steve _anyway_?”

“We have to go to Hopper. This is officially a code red.”

Nancy tries again. “ _Michael!_ ” she says, and she sounds so much like their mother when she does it that he swivels around like her voice is a gunshot.

“ _What_?” he snaps. She can tell he’s riled, but she doesn’t back down.

“ _What_ exactly is the code red?” Nancy asks. “Is Steve in trouble? And why does he have a police radio?” She gestures to the car with a full arm motion.

“We’ll tell you when we can!” He starts backing off, the others all preparing to go get their bikes from the rack. “We’ll tell you!”

She just follows after them, looking around the lot to make sure no one is listening in on their conversation. “No— _Mike!_ ” She has to hustle to keep up with them, offended but also sensing the urgency. “Where are you going? The station? I can just meet you there.”

Mike kicks his bike stand and gets on, Will climbing on behind him. The others have already started heading out of the parking lot without them to get a head start with Max’s slightly slower means of transportation.

“Fine. Fine! We’ll meet you there!” he agrees.

—

When Flo had paged Hopper to let him know Steve Harrington was at the desk and wanted to talk to him, Hopper didn’t tell her to send him in—he came out of his office himself. He’d waved Steve back there before Callahan and Powell could bother him, and he could already tell from Steve’s demeanor that he probably wasn’t going to make it home on time today.

“Wait—” Hopper says, sprawling his hand in the air after Steve starts going on about being shot at in a van, racing away. “Can we go back to the part where you followed a trail you knew was _clearly_ supernatural, _alone,_ and— You should’ve _called_ me.” He takes his feet off the desk and presses the palm of his hand to his forehead hard enough to relieve pressure. “That’s _why_ I gave you the radio.”

“I would’ve lost the trail,” Steve says. “What if it wasn’t there when you— Actually, I _know_ it wouldn’t have been there, because Kali was making it with her _mind!”_

“So—so, what: you were going to tackle all of this on your own, and maybe walk right into a trap? To your death? You don’t know what could’ve happened. You were _lucky_. That’s all I’m saying.”

“How would it have been any different?” Steve asks.

Hopper shakes his head a little, crossing his arms as he leans back. “How do you mean?”

“I mean, if I used the radio, and you came— Then you’d be following that trail to your death, instead of me. Potentially. How is that different?”

“Because I’m a trained professional.” Hopper’s voice is clear with authority. “I know what to do.”

“You were trained in how to deal with the supernatural in police school? Yeah, I’m sure you were.”

Hopper opens his mouth, a snarky response to that on the tip of his tongue, but instead he remembers jumping down into a hole he dug in the ground, getting lost, and being sprayed with unknown toxins that knocked him out cold. If it wasn’t for the Byers, he’d be long dead, just like others who didn’t know what they were getting themselves into.

Steve concedes to the look on Hopper’s face, then tilts his head down. “I’m sorry,” he mutters. “You’re right. I knew it was a stupid idea when I did it.”

With a sigh, Hopper studies him for a moment. “No, kid… You did good. You followed your head instead of your instincts, when… you should probably trust both, but—you’re not dead, and you’re coming to me now. So, you did good.”

When Steve looks pacified by that answer, Hopper adds, “You can keep goin’, but I need to know: did anyone else see what you were doing?”

“Uh… no.”

“No?” Hopper says, clarifying. “Or ‘uh, no’? Because ‘uh, no’ usually translates to ‘yes.’”

“Well, I mean—I still don’t think anyone saw anything.”

“Your friend?” Hopper asks. “When you were skipping?”

“We weren’t skipping. Well— _I_ wasn’t. Not on purpose. It’s kind of a long story.”

“Yeah, I know all about that. Steve, I’m not trying to get you in trouble; I just need to know the facts. That way we can keep a lid on this whole thing.”

Steve gestures uselessly with his hand. “Then, yeah, I guess we were skipping.”

“You and…?”

When Steve glances up at him, he can’t hold eye contact for long. Why is he so bad at coming up with excuses on the spot with everyone but his own parents?

Hopper has his brow furrowed through Steve’s silence, then moves his head down a little in an attempt to get Steve to look at him. He doesn’t.

“Nancy?” Hopper guesses gently.

“ _What?”_ Steve sits up straighter, hands clasping in his lap. “No, it wasn’t—Nancy. And if it was, I’d tell you. It’s just not… important… right now…”

Towards the end of his sentence, there’s a ruckus from outside the office. The sound of voices can be heard loud and mumbled through the door, just through the sheer volume of them.

“What the hell?” Hopper gets out of his seat as Flo tries to page him, but instead of picking up, he goes to the door and pulls it wide open. “What is going _on_ out here?” he asks, talking over a few voices at once.

Mike Wheeler is the closest to Hopper’s office of the band of kids in the station, and he’s being held by one of the officers with a grip on the handle of his backpack. There’s silence for approximately a beat before the commotion spirals out of control again.

“Hey!” Hopper demands loudly. “Callahan; let the boy go. Wheeler; tell your merry band of blockheads to _shut it_ for _five seconds_.”

Steve, who hadn’t gotten out of his seat when Hopper opened the door, is finally up and joining Hopper at his side, scanning the room of all the kids, and sees just beyond them, standing with Powell, is Nancy. He locks eyes with her.

“Steve!”

It’s not Nancy, though. It’s Dustin. He hustles right up to them, and Hopper sidesteps away from the kid. Steve jumps slightly when Dustin wraps his arms around his waist, giving him a tight hug as he buries his face in Steve’s chest for a long moment.

When he lets go, he says, “We were worried sick!” He smacks Steve on the arm. “You’re grounded, young man!”

“Okay,” Hopper says derisively, putting his hands on his hips. “Everyone under the age of sixteen— _out!_ No buts!”

It’s easier for the police to usher the kids out on Hopper’s authority, but they still make a fuss about it.

“Can I help you, Miss Wheeler?”

Nancy puts up both hands in surrender. “It’s probably Mike you should talk to, when you have a chance.”

“There’s nothing those brats know that I wasn’t going to tell you.”

Hopper sighs.

“Lesson two,” he says, holding up two fingers. “Get as many sides to the story as you can.”

It takes a while to sort everything out and Hopper has to explain to the kids outside that they can’t come barging in and make a huge scene, no matter the circumstance.

“Dealing with bullies?” Callahan asks from his desk when Mike comes back in and follows Hopper to his office.

“Something like that,” Hopper answers for him.

Piece-mealing together the stories is a lot easier with Mike there than Hopper expected. He knows more than Steve gave him credit for, which doesn’t surprise Hopper in the slightest.

What _does_ surprise Hopper is that Mike knows who Kali is and is able to authenticate her story—because El told him about her.

He swallows thickly, feeling warm with a personal shame. Did El not think Hopper could handle this information? Did she not trust him?

“When did she tell you about this?”

Mike shrugs. “During the Snow Ball,” he says.

“Just, right there? Surrounded by the entire population of Hawkins Middle?”

“ _No_.” Looking repulsed, he narrows his eyes at Hopper. “We went to the AV Room for a while.”

“Wow,” Steve says, grinning. “Nice.”

Mike turns his disgusted glare on Steve. Hopper glances at Steve too, but he isn’t going to draw any more attention to it than that.

“I guess… I’ll talk to her tonight. And if she’s _okay_ with it—if she _wants_ to talk to them—we’ll do that. But if not, this girl’s gonna have to settle with me.”

Mike nods dutifully.

“What about the—“ Steve blinks, not really sure how to describe it. “The agent? The weird, uh.”

“Yeah,” Hopper says. “That’s what we need to talk about. Find out what these new friends of yours know.”

“Can I come, too?” Mike asks.

“I think it’d be best if we just kept this a small group, and maybe—” He looks to Steve. “I can’t exactly bring my other deputies on this one. You said there’s five of them, yeah?”

“That’s not _fair!_ ” Mike looks between the two of them as they make plans without him.

“Mike. You can’t just throw yourself into these situations. You’re smaller than them, you’re—”

“So what? So _what?_ El would want me to be there. She’d _want_ me to.”

Hopper leans both elbows on his desk and puts his head in his hands, rubbing his temples as he looks down. The kid’s so right and as much as he doesn’t want to be responsible for something happening to him, there might just be better chances if Mike _did_ come along.

“Alright. Both of you meet me here after school tomorrow. A-sap.”

—

Steve is anxious all night. His father tries to hold a conversation with him and he just can’t find it in him to give more than one or two word answers. It barely stirs him when his dad tells Steve if he keeps his head in the clouds, he’ll end up on the streets. He rambles about people he thinks are lesser than him. He talks about women like they’re second class citizens.

It’s exhausting, but even when Steve goes to bed, he doesn’t feel tired.

Fighting off creatures from hell was exhilarating and terrifying, sure, but for the most part, it just feels like a dream. A real fucked up dream, but something he finds pretty easy to ignore day to day. It’s people that are harder.

He was aware of the paperwork Nancy and the kids had to sign, and the idea that if they didn’t keep their mouths shut, they’d have government officials at their doors. But secrecy with the promise of the slap on a hand, and secrecy that followed up with gunfire, were two very different things.

Demons—demodogs—whatever they were, they were just monsters, and they could be killed.

The _governments_ were full of human beings. Smart, conniving human beings, with the power and authority not just to kill, but to ruin lives, to cover up the truth, and to keep quiet the people who know it or _else._

It keeps him awake for hours, and when he goes to school the next day, he doesn’t remember driving there, or getting in his car—just leaving it.

During first period, his teacher sits at the front, scrawling on papers as the class radiates with an affable energy. Even after the bell rings, class doesn’t start, and he looks around, for the first time that day, really aware of his surroundings.

But his questions are answered when Amy Botherby—an ex of his on the school council—enters the room with a cart and a carefree smile. She stacks several neatly wrapped squares of fudge after ordering them by the names written on their notes, then passes them down each row.

“Steve,” the girl in front of him says as she turns in her seat to hand him the rest. “Who’s yours from?”

“What?”

He blinks as she hands him two, then three more, and sure enough, one of them _does_ have his name and class number on it. He stares at it for a long moment, and it’s not until he gets tapped on the shoulder that he remembers to pass the others back.

He touches the ribbon, and thumbs open the paper with a flicking motion. In neat, dark ink, it just reads: _Eat this garbage so I don’t have to._

There was absolutely no way in hell this was what he thought it was, right? Steve uncertainly turns in his seat, trying to as cautiously as possible get a look back in Billy’s direction. _Eat this garbage so I don’t have to_ , it says, and he can so perfectly hear it in Billy’s voice. _Who the hell doesn’t like chocolate?_ Steve had asked him.

Billy is looking at his own little notes in the small pile he’s collected, and Amy thanks the class before she leaves. When she speaks, Billy glances up to the front and catches Steve’s gaze, and he smiles like a killer, chewing gum slowly—and his eyes flick down for a second before he looks back to Steve, with recognition, with confirmation of what he’s done.

Steve turns away, but not just to the front of the class; he faces more towards the door, so he completely has his back turned to Billy’s window seat.

The problem is that there’s no right answer here. He’s been backed into a fucking corner by whatever power play this is supposed to be and it makes Steve’s head hurt. Doesn’t Billy understand that Steve has to play diplomat with a bunch of wanted criminals, the chief of police, and a little girl with psychic powers? That the government might want him dead now, just by association?

No. No, he fucking doesn’t.

Billy Hargrove thinks Steve has nothing better to do but to play his mind games.

If Steve could figure out what Billy _expects_ him to do, and then do the opposite, he still loses. Because what Billy wants, as made clear as day during their fight, is for Steve to surprise him.

Ms. Norris asks them to get out their history books. Steve stares at the wrapped fudge on his desk as everyone shuffles through their things, pulling out books or notes or pencils.

He doesn’t care. He doesn’t _care._

 _He doesn’t care_.

Steve sits back in his chair normally, leaning back just enough so he knows Billy can see his desk from his vantage point, and he unwraps the fudge. He does it carefully. Slowly. Then he breaks a piece off and eats it, until it’s gone, and when the chocolate square is no more, he crumples up the saran wrap into a little ball and tosses it in the trash can two desks over when Ms. Norris has her back turned to him.

Then he puts on his _fucking_ sunglasses, and flips open his notebook.

The class period feels like it lasts hours. He looks at his watch a few dozen times (because after _yesterday_ he wasn’t going to forget to wear one). When the time finally comes and everyone packs up, Steve grips his glasses in one hand and rubs his face with the other, taking a breather. He has to do this another four times on _top_ of lunch?

He pulls his hand away as several pieces of fudge are cascaded onto his desk, and Steve looks up at Billy standing beside him.

“If I’d known I’d get so many, I wouldn’t have wasted my money,” he says.

Steve puts his sunglasses up in his hair, and he takes a second to answer, but Billy is patient.

“So that _was_ from you.”

“What—? Did I need to sign my _name_?” The aura of sarcasm is there. Steve fixes him with an unamused stare. “Lighten up,” Billy says, then claps Steve on the arm. “Tell you what: come sit with us at lunch.”

“Yeah, you and Tommy’ll be a real delight to eat with,” Steve says, getting out of his seat. He stacks the four fudge chunks and manages them in one hand.

Billy follows and makes it look like he’s leading. “Tommy doesn’t usually _eat_ with us.” He says it like he’s offended Steve didn’t know. “He can’t really chew what he bites off, you know what I mean?” He squints as Steve goes to his locker, since it’s not far from Ms. Norris’ room, watching him make quick work of the combination.

“No,” Steve says. He puts in the food, then grabs his science book. “How ‘bout I tell _you_ what: leave your posse at the door and I’ll have lunch with you. Just you and me. No bullshit.”

With a thin smile, Billy looks like he’s thinking about it, but it’s just for show. “I’m the one who calls the shots around here, Harrington.”

“Yeah? How’s that working out for you?” He shuts his locker door soundly, then raises a brow at him. “Are we done here? I’ll see you third period. Tell me if you change your mind.”

Steve provides Billy with the space to respond to that—a long moment of charged silence—but Billy just inclines his head back slowly and licks his lips, so Steve goes to class without another word.

If he’s not going to be a normal human being, fuck him and fuck his invite and fuck his chocolate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the support guys! Don't forget to leave a kudos if you enjoyed so hopefully more people will see the fic. We're getting a little knee deep into the Worst of Both Worlds life Steve is living... Hopefully he doesn't crack under pressure. My tumblr is andyoumaster in case anyone wanted it, btw, but I'm not super active there. Cheers, &have a good weekend!


	13. Chapter 13

Nancy is still itching to talk to Steve. She’d gotten some of the story out of the kids while Mike was in Hopper’s office, but when they were finished and Mike asked if she could take Will home, of course she said yes. Even if maybe she promised their mom she wouldn’t have the car for long.

At the Byers’, she’d spoken to Jonathan about her concern for Steve, and he suggested that maybe they should talk the next day. That if she was putting it off for  _his_  sake, he didn’t mind. Really.

So when she catches him in the hall, she touches Steve’s arm just before he gets to his class. His face is drawn down in a thoughtful frown, so instead of saying his name, she asks gently, “Are you okay?”

She’s holding her books like a tray pressed against her chest, with her arms underneath, and her pencil pouch and a cut out square of fudge sitting atop.

“Yeah,” Steve says, shaking his head as he moves their conversation beside the door. “Jonathan got you fudge, huh? Surprised he’s selling out to the corporate man,” he jokes.

“It’s hardly ‘the corporate man’ when it was homemade,” she defends.

“I’m just kidding, Nance.”

“I know… I just…” Nancy presses her lips together and closes her eyes for a second, resetting. “Nothing. Remember how I said I wanted to talk to you?”

“Having second thoughts?”

“ _No_. The opposite, actually. We should. Maybe during lunch? I just—yesterday? And… It’d just be the three of us— Maybe we could go outside…?”

Steve didn’t think there was an offer that could sound  _less_ appealing than having lunch with Billy and company, but somehow Nancy found it, and dropped it in Steve’s lap like a water balloon.

What’s nice about agreeing to Nancy’s proposition is that it makes class go by faster, because even when he tells himself its not a big deal, he finds himself dreading it.

He says he doesn’t want to eat outside. No, not because it’s cold, because he’ll feel more comfortable around other people if he’s going to have to third wheel for the two of them. Sitting across from the two of them isn’t something he thought about before taking his seat, but he feels like he shouldn’t be surprised how awkward it is.

“Mike seemed like he was in a good mood yesterday,” Nancy says, smiling as a way to test the waters with Steve.

He doesn’t know what she expects him to say when they’re in a crowded cafeteria, so he just smiles back and dips one of his fries in ketchup.

“Did Will talk to him about Christmas?” Jonathan asks after a beat.

“I don’t know… But I can, if he didn’t.”

Steve is already swiping at the ketchup with another fry. “What’s happening Christmas?”

The way that Jonathan and Nancy look at each other makes him wish he hadn’t asked. Nancy doesn’t answer right away, so Steve makes an assumption and points to Jonathan with a fry. “Are you going over to the Wheeler’s?”

Jonathan shakes his head, and Nancy says, “I… was thinking about going over to his house, actually. Mike might come, too.”

“And your mom’s not upset about that?”

“Well, I… I haven’t told her. We were just going to leave sometime in the afternoon, maybe after we open presents. Get that all out of the way.”

Steve drops his hand to the table slowly. “You don’t think that’s kinda… selfish?”

“Not really. You— _You_  came to my house last year because you didn’t want to have to deal with your parents.”

“I mean, that’s kind of different. They only do the bare minimum because they feel obligated to.”

“And  _my_  parents go over the  _top_  because they feel obligated to. They act like they’re such a perfect happy family, and during holidays it’s their chance to pretend it’s not all just a lie.”

Jonathan reaches for Nancy’s hand and gives it a squeeze. “Nancy—it’s okay.”

Steve looks between them, at their hands. At the way Jonathan lightly strokes the back of hers with his thumb. He feels the jealousy rise up in his chest, and it’s not even because of  _Jonathan_. It’s strictly because it's Nancy, and the fact that no matter what, he misses her. Sure, he misses the physical contact, because it’s something he’s always craving, like a language he hasn’t been able to speak since they broke up. But most importantly, he misses her friendship.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, looking down and away.

The table falls quiet. It lasts long enough that he feels self-conscious, but when he looks up, the two of them are looking past him.

“Harrington.”

Billy’s presence is both a welcome distraction and an added stressor that Steve feels might make him lose his composure.

“I can’t do this right now,” Steve says, his voice terse.

“You made me a deal,” Billy replies, nearly sing-song. “You better not be backing out.”

When Steve finally turns to him, Billy has a tray in his hands and nods to the outside door.

“He said leave him alone,” Nancy says.

Billy doesn’t acknowledge her for long before he is expectant again, and he simply says, “Steve…” elongating his name hauntingly.

Steve swings one leg over the bench and scoops up his own lunch tray. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?” He can tell Nancy is surprised, but he needs to organize his thoughts before he can talk to her. She says his name weakly, and Steve gets up to follow Billy out of the cafeteria.

“You almost got me,” Billy says, dropping his food on the table as he sits down and puts one leg up on the seat next to him. “Thought you were going to stand me up for Byers.”

The metal out here is like ice through Steve’s pants, so he zips up his jacket most of the way, shivering once. “You’re lucky my standards are at such record-breaking lows these days.”

Billy snorts.

“I hijacked your title,” he reminds Steve. “If anything, people think  _my_  standards are low.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a difference between what people think and actual fact, believe it or not.”

“You were the one sitting with your floozy ex and her creep of a boyfriend. Bet that’s why she left you.” He’s grinning. “You weren’t enough of a voyeur for her.”

Steve sets his jaw, forcing himself not to react, going back to his food so he doesn’t have to look at Billy. His voice has more authenticity to it, but he tries not to sound too miffed, in case it has the opposite effect. “Can you just—can you let it go with the Nancy crap? Call me what you want. The underdog, the—I don’t know.” He sighs. “But just leave her out of it.”

Billy watches him as he chews a bite of his sandwich, searching his face. “I thought you’d be cool now that you found a rebound.”

“What?” That gets Steve’s attention, and he looks across the table to him, mouth hanging partway open.

“That blonde bitch yesterday. She a college girl or something?”

Steve feels hot in the face, and as much as he knows Billy isn’t going to find out the truth, it still makes him tense. “Yeah, that’s a no,” he says quickly, but his recovery is better. “I think I’m swearing off girls for the time being after Nancy.” The words are light, like it doesn’t make his entire chest ache just thinking about it.

But Billy seems to believe him. He doesn’t have that stupid smile on his face, and he doesn’t really look like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, either. Steve is still on edge, but he keeps one hand on his knee, out of sight, so he can dig his fingernails into his palm.

“She… meant that much to you?” Billy finally asks.

“Yeah.” Somehow the question hurts him more than any wiseass insult Billy could throw his way, but Steve knows it isn’t intended. “Something like that.”

“I figure it can’t be worth it then.”

Steve looks up at Billy after a couple seconds, hand finally relaxing on his leg. “ _What_  can’t be worth it?”

“Caring that much about someone.” Billy shrugs with a vague hand motion—the hand with his sandwich. “If you’re just gonna be worse for it.”

Laughing quietly, directly from the release of his nerves, Steve stares absently out at the trees and to the houses he can see through the fog on the other side of them. “Yeah, I dunno, man. It’s more complicated than that, y’know? She definitely made me wanna be a better person, and just… It’s—like I said, it’s complicated.

“Guess none of us can help who we fall in love with,” Steve finishes wistfully.

He shakes himself out of it and peels open his applesauce, gesturing to Billy. “What about you? You got a girl back in California?”

“No,” Billy says through a breath of a laugh. “Not really my scene.”

“What; not into long-term relationships?”

Delivered in the same way Steve had spoken about Nancy, Billy says, “Something like that.”

There’s a gut feeling that stops Steve from pushing it, but whatever aura Billy was giving off to make his words creep back down his throat is gone when Billy kicks him under the table. “I need a real hobby in this town,” he says. “Something to fill the void of going to the beach.” He shakes his hand out as a physical representation of how antsy he is. “I’m going stir-crazy.”

Steve snorts, and he feels normal again. “Is it true all Californians like to surf?” he jokes.

“Anyone who matters.” Billy smiles, then shakes his head. “I did volleyball, actually. But it’s, uh… It’s a proximity thing. I never lived close to the ocean until my mom got sick and we moved into her uncle’s house. We were like ten fucking minutes from the beach.”

It’s the first time Billy’s mother has ever been mentioned by him, or Max, and Steve finds himself genuinely wanting to know more.

“Musta been nice,” he says. “No snow. No weird shit—“ Steve shakes his head. “Is, uh—is your mom—she still out there?”

“Oh, no, no, no. She’s long gone. Passed from lung cancer when I was eleven.”

Steve exhales. “I’m sorry, man. That’s rough.” He finds himself concerned with trying to uncover ways to keep this version of Billy in the fold, wanting to reward the things he says that humanize him. “I know it’s not the same, but I lost my grandma to cancer, too. Growing up, I think I stayed over at her house more than my own.”

“Don’t get all sappy on me.”

Billy’s expression is drenched in disgust and Steve feels his chest tighten. He realizes it was probably foolish to think giving some of himself in return was the way to respond to Billy opening up, but he also remembers the way he’d shut down in Steve’s car, and it seems like nothing makes sense.

“Why not try sports?” Steve says after a beat, dropping the topic all together. “You fucking creamed me when we did basketball during P.E.”

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I? But it’s a little late for that. Tryouts are over and it’s senior year.”

“Guess you’re SOL, then. I’ve got nothin’ else.”

“Yeah, guess I’m stuck with  _you_.”

Steve scrapes the bottom of his applesauce with his spoon after finishing his chicken nuggets. “I’m sure you just love that,” he says with a wry laugh.

“I do.” Billy grins through his words, then licks the corner of his mouth, and Steve can’t help but watch. “Give me more details on your bitch problems. No one seems to have a clue who she is.”

He thought he’d escaped this, so he pops one of the only good looking fries left on his tray in his mouth to give himself some buffer time to think. Was Billy asking people about him? Talking about him to Ben, or Tommy, or Derek, or whoever the fuck was orbiting him at any given time?

Well, of course he was. At the very least, he’d been told the wildest of the stories Steve had been caught up in, in the past.

He opts to deflect, because he doesn’t trust himself to make a convincing lie again.

“Like you don’t have your  _own_  girl problems. I know for a fact Carol wants to ride your dick.”

“Is that the girl with the really short bangs?” Billy messes with the front of his hair.

“Y—” Steve lets out a startled laugh. “Shit, dude, really? Red hair, real curly?”

“Hm. Name sounds familiar, but I’m not getting a face. Sorry.”

His ‘sorry’ is oozing with apathy, and Steve can’t decide what’s funnier: Billy putting Tommy in his place by not letting him eat lunch with his crew, or Billy having no idea that Tommy’s girlfriend exists, despite the two of them being attached at the hip.

It makes the atmosphere of the new power shift actually seem like it’s in his favor. He reminds himself it doesn’t matter in the long run, but watching it unfold is almost satisfying now.

Steve just doesn’t know what his role is supposed to be. He can’t think of a single reason that Billy would want him on his side—especially now that Steve isn’t making an effort to keep up appearances. But whatever this is is miles better than fighting tooth and nail with him.

He thinks maybe if they keep this up, he can ward Billy off the kids, and possibly get out of him what his fucking deal is.

They end up joking about basketball—that it would be funny if they teamed up and gave the other side no breathing room. Billy says he should like the challenge. That, sure, it would be funny, but undeniably boring without Steve on the other team.

When the bell rings, Steve offers to have lunch with him again tomorrow.

“Not a chance,” Billy says.

Steve can’t get a gauge on if he means it, but the greater part of him hopes he doesn’t.

“Are we still on for Saturday?” Billy adds coolly, dumping his tray and looking back to brown eyes that have already prepared to return to dissociating.

“Oh,” Steve says, shaking his head a little. “Yeah, absolutely.”

By the end of the day, they’ve barely looked twice at each other, but Steve has other things on his mind. When he dumps his things in his locker, he eyes the fudge, and thinks it might be a good peace offering between Hopper and Kali. He grabs it all and heads for his car, flipping down his glasses to wait for Mike.

Max gets to his car first, pulls open the door, and tosses her backpack at the foot of the seat.

“Shit,” Steve says artlessly, and he runs a hand through his hair. “It’s Thursday.”

“Yeah?”

“I just—I have to get to the police station. We’re—“

“Right,” Max says. She closes her eyes tight, then reaches down for her bag. “Sorry—I knew that. I just. I wasn’t thinking.”

“No, it’s—it’s totally my fault. I should’ve thought of a backup plan for this. I’m so stupid.”

“It’s not that big of a deal.” Max redresses herself with one shoulder strap as the grating sounds of  _Judas Priest_ plays not too far from them.

It’s clarifying in a way, and Steve fishes the chocolate out of his cupholder as Mike treks across the school grounds towards them.

“Here,” Steve says. “I know it doesn’t make up for it, but take it as an apology.”

She makes a face at him as she leans a knee on the seat to grapple all of them, and one of the tags catches her eye simultaneously, so she turns it in her hand.

“Are these… from Billy?” she says skeptically, her top lip curling up.

“No. What? No.” Steve reaches over and rips one of the tags off, crushing it in his hand, and Mike gives them both a weird look as Max backs away from the door.

She drops her backpack to the asphalt to put the fudge in there, and as she zips up and Mike’s sitting in the passenger seat, she says, “Try not to blow it without your zoomer.”

Mike smiles when Max does. She waves as he closes the door.

“You forgot, didn’t you?” Mike asks as Steve backs out of his spot.

“It’s been one hell of a week, Wheeler.”


	14. Chapter 14

“Alright, boys,” Hopper says, grabbing his hat with his entire hand and putting it on in one fluid motion. “I’m gonna be out for the rest of the day. Got a house call.” He strides over to the front desk and shoots a conspiratorial wink at Flo as she hands him his keys. She shakes her head at him.

“‘House call’,” Callahan says, and his air quotes are very pointed.

The BMW is left in the station parking lot as Hopper takes Steve and Mike to pick up El. Steve hasn’t been out to the cabin personally, but he’s heard enough about it that he’s not surprised when they’re driving deep into the woods where there are no marked trails and he can’t discern which direction the town is in.

“Alright, watch your step,” Hopper starts to explain, about to catch Steve up to speed about the tripwire, but all the deadbolts on the door unlock, and there’s El, drowning in a massive maroon jacket that nearly looks like throw pillows are a part of the lining. Her smile is warm, and as the door closes behind her, she comes forward quick enough that Hopper feels his heart stop. She dances over the wire with ease, despite his fears, and folds Mike into a hug that makes them both spin.

Hopper lets out a breath. “Can you lock it up for me, El?”

She does as she’s told, holding Mike’s hand with one of her own, and uses the other, with a twist and a squint, to put the bolts back into place. Mike gives El’s hand a squeeze and they go to climb in the door to the back.

“I didn’t think she’d come,” El whispers to Mike, leaning on his shoulder when they get in the truck.

Tactlessly, Steve turns in his seat. “Who—Kali?” It rewards an eye roll from Mike.

“Yes. I… I didn’t think I’d ever see her again.”

“Did you ever search for her?” Mike asks, voice softer than Steve has ever heard him speak.

El shakes her head and wrinkles her brow. “I was worried she would know I was there. And it would make her sad.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not gonna be a problem now,” Steve says. “Besides, everyone loves a teary reunion.”

With a snort, Hopper shoots him a glance. “She’s not gonna cry. She’s made of tougher stuff than you.”

“You’re really supportive, you know that?”

The kids laugh in the back and it puts a smile on Hopper’s face, too.

The ride into the field is a bumpy one thanks to the earth trying to take back what belongs to it with overgrown weeds and gopher holes. El has to sit up straighter—she holds onto her seatbelt at her chest, and peers between the seats to look at the dilapidated farmhouse.

It looks like Funshine found a vehicle for them after all. Steve notes the grey van parked haphazardly on the right of their hideout. It doesn’t have sliding side doors like the old one, but rather two in the back that probably open outward.

Kali and Funshine are already standing outside when they drive up near the van. Steve gives a two-fingered salute, but Kali only seems rigid until she crosses her arms loosely.

As he steps out with Hopper, Kali looks between them warily.

“It was not part of the plan that you’d bring a police officer right to us,” Kali says. He’s not sure why her disappointed look cuts him so deeply.

“I didn’t bring him as some kind of  _slight_  against you.”

Steve crosses his arms, too, mirroring her defensive posture, but as soon as El and Mike are climbing out of the truck, Kali’s tenseness dissolves. She radiates with newfound high spirits, fixated on El until the two of them meet in the middle to hug. Their hands are still linked afterwards, and Mike moves closer too, but Hopper keeps him at bay gently with an arm over his chest.

“Jane,” Kali breathes.

Funshine’s shift in demeanor is just as drastic as Kali’s. “Hello, Miss Jane.”

“I missed you,” El tells them. “Both of you.”

When Hopper has allowed them their moment, he relaxes and rests a hand on his belt. “I didn’t come to oppose you—arrest you—whatever you’re afraid of. I just wanna talk.” He nods to El. “We both do.”

Kali looks to El first, then to Steve. It doesn’t seem like she’s looking for approval, or even answers, but just some sign of faith. Steve swears he sees a twinkle in her eye for a fraction of a second, and suddenly he realizes she’s getting a feel for who these new people are, and maybe even who Steve is today, based on their own personal fear-scapes.

It’s chilling, but he trusts her like it’s the most natural thing in the world—to trust someone he’s known for such a short period of time.

Kali nods.

“Very well.”

—

Max watches Will’s brother drive off with him and drops her skateboard to the ground so she can catch up with the others as fast as possible. It takes some shouting, but Dustin and Lucas ride their breaks to a stop and wait for her, Lucas leaning on his handlebars with a smile.

“I… kinda forgot Steve and Mike were doing… whatever they’re doing. I was going to see if Steve wanted to hang out until Billy got home.”

“Why?” Dustin says. “Scared of the werewolf?”

Lucas would shove him if he wasn’t a good three feet away.

“Don’t listen to him. We can ride home with you,” he says.

“Do you guys wanna hang out at my house for a little bit?” Max asks. There’s a slight pause as Lucas and Dustin look at each other, so she adds, “Neil isn’t home. And my mom went to see him at work, so it would just be us.”

“It’s not that,” Lucas says. “We just—”

“We already have plans.” Dustin tries to make it sound casual. “I’m onto something big with my experiments, and I need some extra hands to test it out.”

“Your…  _experiments?_  What kind of experiments?”

“Uh—the  _demodog_  kind? The only reason I haven’t been telling the party everything is because I don’t want Will to get upset. Because then  _Mike_  gets mad, and everyone sides with  _them_ , and I look like the bad guy.”

“But it’s just science,” Lucas agrees.

“Sure,” Max says. “I mean, that’s totally  _gross_ , but sure. You guys are gonna get yourselves killed.”

They ride down smoothly where the road dips down with a hill, and then Dustin says, “You know if you’re  _scared_ , we can ride with you to Will’s house and I’m sure  _Jonathan_  can protect you.”

“I think I’m good,” she says. Dustin’s words sound just enough like a challenge that she ignores the feeling in her gut telling her to ask them if she can come along. She wants to face her anxiety valiantly—she wants to prove that she can handle things on her own, even if Dustin is just teasing her—even if he’d say the same to any of them in her situation.

It’s a choice made in stubbornness, and it’s one she regrets.

—

“I was under the impression  _we_  were the only ones left,” Kali says.

Two back windows had been broken open, and they’d replaced it with a clear plastic so light could get in, but animals could not. The group sits around a wooden table next to a barrel with open flame that Dottie tosses deteriorated parts of the building into, along with weeds from outside and any of their trash.

“We?” El says, touching the etched numbers on her arm. Kali nods and touches her own.

“I had heard stories about the others. That they had died or, in some cases, had taken their own lives. I believe if I was still imprisoned and didn’t think there was any hope for escape, I would have joined them.”

“That’s kind of… dark,” Steve says.

“It’s the truth. It was a dark place. A dark lifestyle, and one none of us asked for.”

Hopper folds his hands on the table. “But you were wrong, I take it? About being the only ones left?”

“Yes. A few weeks ago, we were caught off guard. Mick had been keeping lookout for us, and of no fault of her own, our security had been bypassed. In the middle of the night, this girl—this other… experiment—”

“Sister,” El says.

“Yes. Our own  _sister_  had broken into our hideout and tried to kill me. She used her powers to influence Axel and in a rage, he tried to suffocate me.”

Steve glances to Axel, but he doesn’t get a look in return. Axel’s head is down and his hands are in his pockets, shoulders risen high with both discomfort and guilt.

“My own gifts couldn’t stop him. No image I tried to conjure—no creature or fear or illusion could stop him. In his eyes was an anger that was overriding every other emotion like a virus.

“If it was not for Fun, I would not be here today to warn you.”

El’s grip gets tighter on Mike’s fingers and Mike brings their joined hands into his lap, using his other hand to lightly stroke the back of hers.

“Why—Why would they want to kill El?” Hopper asks. His throat is dry with this horrible realization, and he knows there has to be a solution. There has to be something he can do.

“I don’t think they want to kill her,” Kali responds. “I think she is too much of an asset. They want to kill me because I have caused them so many problems, but I think they want to use this other experiment of theirs to bring Jane back to them.”

Hopper pushes abruptly out of his chair and takes his hat off to run a hand through his hair. “This is unbelievable,” he mutters, then begins to pace.

“What do we have to do?” Mike asks.

“It’s a delicate situation. The agent they have sent—this experiment—”

“ _No_.” Hopper stops, a fist on his hip and a hand cutting through the air definitively. “It’s not  _delicate_. There’s nothing delicate about this, okay? What they’re doing is  _wrong_ , and I’m not going to sit by and let this happen.”

“That was not my suggestion,” Kali says. “I came here for a reason—to protect Jane. But she is not the only one who needs protection.

“The agent doesn’t know what she’s doing. Her powers have left her stripped of emotions. Robotic. And as far as she is concerned, she is alone. She does not deserve to be leashed and given orders any more than myself. Any more than Jane. She needs our help.”

Steve clicks his tongue. “What are we supposed to do, then? Kidnap her? Give her a slap on the wrist? I mean, by the sound of it, it doesn’t seem like she’s gonna listen to us.”

“No,” Hopper says through a sigh. “She’s not. At this point, she’s neck deep in Stockholm Syndrome.” He rubs his face before dropping his hand to his side. “Probably some kind of conditioning—maybe a trigger word. Maybe shock therapy. Both?”

“We could set up a trap,” Mike suggests.

“To do what?” asks Steve.

“Catch her.”

“What? No  _way_. I was just kidding—”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Kali says. “At best, we can sway her to our side.”

“At worst, we can interrogate her,” Funshine adds.

Hopper comes back over to the table and rests his knee on the chair, cracks his neck, then puts his hat back on. “Alright.”

Steve blanches. “Are you serious?”

“It’s fine with me.” He shrugs and it has a weighted finality to it.

Kali searches the faces in the room, making eye contact for approval, but there is no protest. Not from Axel, not from Steve, and not from El.

“Then you should know what she can do.”

—

Just under an hour after Max gets home, she’s finishing up the dishes when she gets the indubitable sense that she’s being watched. She towels off her hands and her heart begins racing wildly—gut constricting with an unease that she doesn’t know how to curb.

She moves slowly to the window, crouched low, and peers from the other side of the couch to get eyes on the figure facing her house. The teen looks around, down one side of the road and the other, and Max’s breathing becomes shallow.

Max slinks back near the kitchen so she can get to her phone, but when she calls Dustin’s number, no one picks up. She had a feeling this would happen, but she tries it a second time, and grunts with frustration as she slams the phone back on the receiver.

Angling herself out of sight by way of the front door, she tiptoes over to it to make sure it’s locked, then goes to her room to make sure the window is shut firmly as well.

She locks her bedroom door.

Minutes pass like hours.

When the distinct revving of the Camaro pulls up on the street to park, Max is quick to put down her homework and unlock her door.

Billy slides his keys onto the table, tugs off his jacket, and drapes it haphazardly over the couch. Max stares at him from the hallway.

He stills. “ _What?”_  he asks, face crinkled in annoyance.

“Did you— When you were driving up, did you see anyone outside?”

Billy crosses to the kitchen down the hall past her, and she follows. “It’s not me you should be hiding your little boyfriend from,” he says, and yanks open the fridge door, squatting to fish out a Sprite from the bottom shelf.

“I’m not talking about my friends. I mean— Did you see anyone  _weird_ , outside? There was this girl— She was, like, I don’t know—”

“What are you  _talking_  about? I just got home. Can you let me relax for five goddamn seconds?”

“Billy, I’m  _serious_.”

“So. Am  _I_.”

He leans against the kitchen counter and tilts back with the can, but when Max doesn’t leave, and just glances the way they came before looking back to him, he stares at her with pinched lips.

“Jesus Christ,  _fine_. There was a girl outside you didn’t recognize? Gee— I wonder why, since we’ve only been living in this shit town for how long?”

She looks exasperated, but also anxious, so he takes another drink and moves past her again. “Come on,” he says, waving her down the hall.

Billy sets his Sprite next to his keys and pulls open the front door. He glances at Max to make sure she’s with him, then moves out on the front porch. The cold barely even fazes him, even though the moisture from the can’s condensation catches the slight wind and he shakes it off, then wipes his hand on his shirt.

“Don’t see anyone,” he says.

“You didn’t even  _look.”_

He turns his head to face her with a unimpressed glare, but Max widens her eyes at him expectantly as if to say,  _do something_.

Stepping off the porch, he moves down the walkway all the way to the street, examines the neighbor’s house, their car, through the thin trees to another road, and then walks around the side of the house. Max lingers by the door only a few seconds after he disappears out of sight, then she quickly runs off the porch to follow him.

“Billy—”

“Oh my god,  _what?”_ He swings around fully with an arm motion to look at her, taking a few steps backwards.

“Nothing,” she replies bitterly, and falls in step behind him as he faces right again.

Of course—of course that girl is gone. Of course she’s no where to be seen and there’s no evidence of her, and when Billy says, “So, are you just fucking with me, or what?” Max frowns.

She drops her gaze to the ground, crossing one arm over her chest, her hair falling from its place behind her ear. “She must’ve left right before you got home,” she says.

Billy scoffs—it’s barely audible, but it still manages to make her feel guiltier. “Yeah, I’m  _sure_.”

“I’m not lying.”

Max draws up her head to match his glare.

In the splayed orange lighting of winter’s sunset hour, she sees an unnatural moving form behind Billy—it’s just far enough away that she represses the urge to scream, but a look of horror crosses her face, and she reaches out for Billy’s arm.

“We have to go,” she says.

The creature, on it’s four legs, looks almost like it’s covered in a thick hide—she’s never seen one in the light before, and now its facelessness is unmistakable. It dips its head down like it’s sniffing something out, and even without a nose it looks  _almost_  like a normal, docile animal.

Billy shakes his head indignantly. “Hello?!” he says, cupping his mouth with one hand like a megaphone. “Where’s the nasty bitch that—”

“ _Billy_ ,” she pleads in a whisper. The demodog stops and looks right at them, and Max can feel her eyes sting with dread.

He finally turns at the prolonged look on her face, and when he sees the dog, he rocks back on his heels.

“What the ever-living  _shit…?”_

It crouches down as it turns to them, head swaying in predatory preparation, and Max tugs hard on Billy’s shirt, freeing part of it from under his belt as he stumbles a few steps back, eyes still locked on the demodog.

Max wants to run—she tells him to  _run_  in another whisper even more urgent than the first—but she doesn’t go without him. The creature lowers its head, and she feels like it’s glowering at them, but it turns slowly, and after a few seconds, it canters away in the direction it was originally facing.

Billy looks to Max, then the demodog, then turns and speed-walks back to their house, glancing over his shoulder a good three times until he’s inside. Max runs after him.

She catches the door just before it’s slammed, and when she closes it behind her, she makes sure to lock it.

With her back against the door, she watches him flip open a box of Camels on the couch, light the tip, then take a long drag.

“I didn’t know there were coyotes out here,” he says with half of his mouth.

“Are you serious?”

Billy doesn’t look at her as he shimmies his lighter back down into his pocket. “No, I’m not fucking  _serious_.” He pushes off the cushion, then picks up his can of soda with his free hand. Billy opens his mouth as he turns to face Max again, but he waves her off just as quickly with his cigarette. “Next time don’t drag me outside for nothing.”

He then leaves down the hall.

It’s not much longer until music from Billy’s bedroom drowns out Max’s thoughts, and she slides down to the hardwood floor against the door, hands wrapped tightly around her knees.


	15. Chapter 15

Max tries to call Dustin and Lucas three more times before their parents get home. She stays in the living room now so she can keep an eye on the window, bringing her backpack and notebook out by the coffee table.

Her mother smiles at her with a soft, “Hey,” when she enters the house, and Neil asks, “How was school?”

She blows them both off with curt answers, but she feels safer with them there. Shortly, the sound from Billy’s room dies down until the music is something Max can only hear the faintest traces of. Max watches Neil glance down the hall, pull at his tie, and wander in that direction, and when he turns into his own bedroom instead of Billy’s, Max lets out a breath.

“Help me with dinner?” Susan asks.

Looking down at her homework, Max realizes she’s only finished half. She barely had anything to do to begin with, because it’s so close to the holiday, but she’s been so preoccupied by her thoughts that the majority of her time has been spent elsewhere. She decides she’ll either finish it in first period (or not at all) and she puts it in her backpack.

It’s here that she sees, and remembers, the fudge.

It had been put on the back burner in favor of more pressing matters, but it raises some new questions after the demodog sighting. If Billy and Steve were talking…

She tries to replay Billy’s reaction to the monster outside—tries to recall if there was any indication that he might have recognized it, or knew what it was. He'd blown it off and acted like he was trying not to think about it.

There’s no way Steve would hide something like this, would he? But when they thought Steve was missing, Billy knew where he went. Steve lied about where he got the chocolate, even though—

“Max?”

She looks up to her mother and gets off the floor. “Yeah,” she says. “I’m coming.”

They heat up a pre-made lasagna and Susan has Max help her cut up vegetables to cook for it. Susan leaves after putting it in the oven and thanking her for doing the dishes—she knocks on Billy’s door to tell him to set the table and take out the trash.

He does the latter first, leaving the front door open and checking his surroundings like a hawk.

In the kitchen, Max side-eyes him. She only has a split second to make a decision, so she clears her throat quietly, sets her knife down, and follows him to the dining table.

“Billy…”

He shakes his head with clear intent. “Just let it go, Max. I don’t _know_ what I saw out there, but I don’t really give a shit.”

“No— That’s not—”

“What then? Just spit it out. You’re giving me an aneurysm.”

“Have you been hanging out with Steve?”

He stops what he’s doing like a deer in the headlights, a handful of forks in his fist. His hand moves to the table with all of them. It takes Max off guard, and his lack of a witty reaction actually makes her give pause.

“Who’s Steve?”

Max feels her chest tighten as she watches Billy turn slowly, grip on the collection of forks tightening.

“What…?” Billy asks.

Neil has a stack of mail in his hands, sifting through it casually, but he stops after placing one in the back to make cutting eye contact with his son.

“Who’s Steve?” he repeats, slower this time.

“No one.”

“Well, you know what happens when you lie,” Neil says, a frown tugging at his face.

It’s rare enough for Billy to stumble so intensely during _any_ confrontation, even with his father, that Max swallows hard. She recovers quick though, and laughs softly.

“No, he means it,” Max says. “He’s no one. Just some kid from my school who wanted to know about his car.”

Neil nods. “Oh.” He thumbs open an envelope, then glances towards the kitchen. “Susan—? I thought we took care of the repair bill.”

There’s a flip like a switch.

Billy is paralyzed with fear in a moment that only Max can see—a clarity washes over her as she pieces together all the information she already has, and it must show on her face, because when he catches her eye, he mimes a very slow and uncertain _no_.

He doesn’t look angry, but rather pleads with his eyes, trying to communicate something that Max can only assume means her suspicions are correct.

But she sees it—she sees his expression change.

In one moment, he’s trapped in the past, like their previous feud was at its height and his world was turning upside down.

And in the next, the wrinkles in his brow even out and he has the air of someone who could take _on_ the world, upside down or not.

“He’s a senior—in my class,” Billy says, turning around after leaving the silverware in a pile on the table.

Neil stops and tilts his head at him, clearly irate at the tone in Billy’s voice. “Excuse me?”

“ _Steve_. Steve Harrington. He’s a rich kid—really pretty eyes. Nice ass.” It’s obvious by his inflection that Billy is _trying_ to get a rise out of him, but Max still covers her mouth with one hand, leaning on one of the dining chairs. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about, though. From the looks of it, he’s not a fag.”

“What the fuck did you just say?”

Neil’s voice is ice—thin ice. Max wants to leave, maybe hide in her room, but they’re in the doorway to her escape, so she just stays as still as possible, like a rabbit in the snow.

“I _said_ I think your reputation is gonna hold up here. Us _faggots_ have a tendency to sniff each other out.”

The house is completely quiet. Max can’t see her mother, but she can only assume she’s stopped whatever she’s doing.

Taking two steps forward, Neil approaches Billy, crowding him against the table. “Go. To your room,” he says thinly, whisper threatening. “We’ll talk.”

They stare each other down for an excruciating amount of time, but Neil moves just a little, and Billy glides past him.

“Help your mother finish dinner.”

Max nods frantically and goes to turn into the kitchen, but Susan walks down the hall into sight.

“Billy—” she says.

Neil’s expression is drenched in realization and he moves past her as Billy swipes his car keys off the coffee table and goes for the front door.

“Get your _ass_ back here, _right now!_ ” Neil shouts, following him, but Billy slams the door behind him and Max stands by her mom as they watch Neil throw open the door again.

They watch Billy pull away from the street curb and Neil falls quiet for the time being, seething in anger in the doorway before he slams the door shut just as Billy had, to the clear sound of the Camaro accelerating in a hurry. Max can _feel_ her mother flinch beside her.

His tone returns to the hushed threatening one from the dining room.

“That ungrateful shit is in _so_ much trouble when he comes home,” he says. And he assaults their home with his angry footsteps, shooting to the back of the house to Billy’s room.

Max takes Susan’s hands, gently trying to soothe her as she leads her to the kitchen. “We can just keep making food, okay?”

There’s ruckus from the bedroom, and with every clatter, Susan winces softly.

—

The spike of euphoria fades the further Billy gets from home.

His first, admittedly irrational thought, is to drive, and just keep driving, until he makes it all the way out to California.

The less his adrenaline guides him, the more realistic his plans become.

He wonders if he has enough gas to at least make it back to Indianapolis tonight, but that idea is scrapped just as the first.

There’s a fleeting thought that maybe— _maybe—_ he could stop by Steve’s house instead.

And then he realizes he’s crying, and that plan goes out the window faster than any of them.

It’s already dark, so he clumsily drives around the edge of town and to the bottom of the quarry, and he parks, slumps over the steering wheel, and stays there until he feels numb enough inside to process what he’s done.

Numb, for _Billy_ , is putting a bandaid over an exposed nerve. It’s running barefoot over blistering cement. It’s surviving the crash and still walking away with a few bruised ribs from the air bag.

He gets out of his car and sits up on the hood, leaning his back against the windshield. The moonlight reflects off the small waves in the water, but he can’t see the top of the cliff, and he definitely doesn’t see any other cars.

The stars, however, out here in the Middle of Nowhere, Indiana, are like little lights strung up by the moon. The sky is so much clearer here than back home, where even at the beach the light-pollution dimmed out what could be seen. He thinks it’s the only thing worth a damn in this town— And then he thinks, _that’s not entirely true_. He doesn’t hate it; he just hates the circumstances, and he might hate his dad, and he hates being alone, but he hates needing people even more.

He finishes an entire cigarette in silence, only marred by the sound of crickets and the occasional flap of wings or hoot of an owl. When his hands get cold enough, he decides to get back in his car to turn on the heat.

He hops off the side, kind of rolling, and he hears footsteps—the crunch of shoes grinding on the dirt.

It’s not as easy to see out into the woods as it is over the water of the quarry, but it doesn’t sound like an animal, so he—

“ _Hello?”_

There’s a figure that comes into view, and even though it doesn’t look too imposing, when it stops, he widens his stance, and when there’s no response, Billy says, “I’m _talking_ to you.”

After a long pause, a girl’s voice says, “You’re sad.”

He clenches his teeth.

“Come again?”

She walks forward a little, hands in her pockets. She’s a good few inches shorter than him, but doesn’t look any younger, and Billy leans against the door of his Camaro as he gets a vague look at her face.

“What the fuck did you say? You can’t just come up to someone in dark like that. You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

“Why…?” she asks. She stops about five feet away from him, hands lost in deep pockets on a big, dark jacket.

“Why… what? Why can’t you sneak up on people in the _dark?_ Because that makes you an idiot.”

“You’re not scared,” she says.

“Well— No.” Billy furrows his brow and crosses his arms. “But you probably should be. There’s coyotes out here, I’ve been told.”

“No. I haven’t seen any.”

“Doesn’t mean they’re not out here.” Again, she doesn’t reply. “What are you _doing_?”

“Waiting.”

“For _what?”_

“I have to find someone.” Slowly, she walks around to the other side of the car, and Billy watches with a raised brow, and then he feels a calmness wash over him like a warm bath, and she says, “Can I come in?”

He nods automatically, opens his car door, and sits in the driver’s seat as she gets in the passenger’s, and when the car is closed up, he turns it on for the heat.

“I was getting cold, anyway.”

“Me, too.”

They sit in silence for a long time. Billy doesn’t know just how long it is, but the heater and the dark make him tired, so he closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he turns to her, his arm resting on the center console between them.

She’s looking at him, head back against the headrest, but facing Billy, her eyes open. It should be jarring to know she’s just been staring at him, but it… isn’t.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

“Four.”

It’s said like an answer to the question, which is _odd_ , and mostly why, for a fraction of a second, he can feel her influence on him. But the awareness fades like a dream in the first few moments of waking up, and he settles again, eyes half-lidded. Relaxed.

“What’s _your_ name?”

“Billy.”

“Billy,” she repeats in a whisper.

“Yeah, don’t wear it out.”

Four reaches out for the vents in his car, warming the palms of her hands. “Are you hungry?” she asks. “Will food make you happy?”

“Nothing makes me happy, sweetheart.”

“That’s not true.”

He lolls his head back to stretch his neck, sitting on the question for a while as he thinks about how he hasn’t received any more money from his dad yet, and if he wastes it on expensive diner food, he won’t have any for gas.

“I could eat,” Billy says. “Know anywhere cheap in this town? I have like five bucks.”

She reaches over and touches the keys in his ignition with a knowing nod.

“Drive. I will tell you where to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if I'll be able to post during this week! What a cliffhanger to leave off on, honestly. Please leave a kudos if you enjoyed and have a wonderful week everyone!


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